From the End of the World
by Akk21
Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.
1. Ch 1: Prologue

******Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

**Prologue: From the End of the World**

A figure was kneeling on the smooth stone floor at the bottom of a gigantic crater, drawing lines and kanji with the grace and confidence of a master; her blond hair was kept out of the way in a short, spiky, fanned-ponytail, leaving long bangs framing her face, and she was wearing a black halter top and black shinobi pants, having long foregone protective gear as pointless.

She was Uzumaki Naruko, Jinchuuriki of Kurama the Kyuubi, former jonin of Konoha, and one of the only two survivors of the fourth shinobi war.

A muscular blond-haired, dark-skinned man sat a fair distance away in silence, a rarity for those who spent more than two seconds in his presence, but he dared not disturb his companion.

He was Killer B, Jinchuuriki of Gyuki the Hachibi, former jonin of Kumo, and the only other survivor.

Many think fuinjutsu is a simple matter of copying some designs, that so long as one has a picture reference and decent calligraphy, one can replicate even the work of masters, and that making seals is just a matter of fitting pieces like a jigsaw; it is not uncommon for shinobi seeking an edge to delve into the art of seals thinking this, and be quickly proven wrong, barely a handful delve further, and even less succeed.

In order to make a seal, the user needs to combine his or her own blood with the ink, the larger the proportion of blood vs ink, and the higher the potency of the user's chakra, the more power one can put into a seal, making stronger and more complex seals possible.

While anyone with enough chakra can replicate the simpler seal designs, as more power is used, the pre-made designs become more inefficient until they either backfire or stop working, what separates the dabblers from the true users of the art is the ability to adjust to this, to change or even create new designs to counter this and take advantage of the extra chakra, designs that are as unique for each individual as their blood and chakra used in the seal. The mark of a master is the ability to both understand and design complex seals, seals that are mostly made with blood.

What Uzumaki Naruko was doing now was definitely the work of a master, possibly the greatest masterpiece of fuinjutsu ever since the sealing of the Juubi.

It was risky, it was stupid, the likelihood of success was grim.

It was better than living in an empty wasteland.

When the five great shinobi villages allied themselves against the common threat of Akatsuki, the Madara impersonator used his skills at manipulation and outright control through his sharingan to bring many of the lesser villages to his side, and bolstered with his army of white Zetsu clones he dragged the world into five years of bloody war; it only got worse after Kabuto joined after the first year, digging deep into Orochimaru's experiments and releasing horror after horror into the field.

Even then, the Allied Shinobi Forces persevered, and at last managed to corner the two madmen in the Mountain's Graveyard, intent on at least destroying the source of the Zetsu army, and using the presence of the two remaining Jinchuuriki in one place to lure Tobi out and hopefully end the war once and for all.

When the Allied Shinobi Forces managed to stop both the Zetsu and the Edo Tensei army, and the two demon containers proved to be too problematic, Tobi grew impatient, and decided to hurry the plan and re-create the Juubi using only a small piece of the eight and nine tails, and while everything appeared to be according to plan, as soon as it was ordered to use a Bijuudama the imperfect Juubi proved to be unstable and exploded.

The explosion, while killing all but two of the shinobi present and leaving the biggest crater in the elemental countries, wasn't the problem; the shockwave of primordial energy that disrupted all chakra it touched and killed every lifeform as far as Naruko and Killer B have managed to check, was.

Every lifeform but the two protected by their respective Bijuu, that is.

That was four years ago, four years of looking for any sign of life, four years of scavenging the ruins of temples and ninja villages for a miracle, four years of preserved food and ration bars.

Luckily for the two Jinchuuriki, the Allied Shinobi Forces had stockpiled on the later two, there was nobody to guard their targets, and all chakra-based defenses were down.

Naruko was already a master of fuinjutsu by the end of the war, she had even made a headway on space-time techniques, but there was a big difference between even the biggest accomplishment of the field ever recorded and what she was attempting today.

"It's done."

Wiping the sweat of her forehead, she stood and stretched, purple slitted eyes gazed at her work; it was nearly noon, and it had taken her three days nonstop, her back and knees were killing her, her wrist was no better, and if it wasn't for Kurama, she would have bled to death in the process a dozen times; she felt pride at her work, grim determination to continue with their plan, and a sense of finality? peace? no matter if she succeeded or failed and died, she would not regret this.

There was also quite a bit of amusement, it was fitting that the greatest work of the last Uzumaki was a gigantic seal in the shape of a spiral.

"Finally!, all this silence was making me crazy yo!" B jumped into the center of the seal.

She nodded, more than used to his personality by this point, thirty handseals flashed at prodigious speed and the whole array lit up, the initial activation was done.

"You both know what to do," there was little else to say, and noon was upon them.

And so they stood, back to back with their hands as if praying and their chakra cloaks fully active, channeling the energy into the huge seal.

Here, in the epicenter of the explosion, her masterpiece would feed on the thick natural energies left by the Juubi and most of the chakra of the two strongest tailed beasts, open a portal through space and time, rip their minds and souls out of their bodies and send them 18 years back in time to join their respective past bodies, in a process eerily similar to how the chakra of a dispelling kage bunshin returns to the user along with its memories.

The winds picked up, whirling around the pair, their chakra cloaks dimming to almost nothing as the seal pulsed brighter each time, and in a final flash of light, they knew no more.

* * *

**Author Notes:**

**This is a time travel story, but this is NOT a story where the traveler will closely follow the previous timeline to avoid disturbing it while trying to save everyone and their grandmothers and ****their family pets. Naruko WILL vary the timeline widely, and while she wants to stop the end of the world and to a lesser extent the war, she only really gives a damn about a handful of people.**

**As you can see, there are several changes compared to canon apart from the protagonist's gender, either because of changes on the protagonist or because they made more sense to me that way.**

**But instead of making my first chapter a huge summary, I'll reveal them slowly as the new timeline progresses.**

**Regarding characters, let's get the view I will be using in this story for a few of the main controversial ones out in the open:**

**Expect a very different skillset, personality, morals and goals from Naruko, she's cold and jaded, she is not a forgiving person, but she's likely to feel kinship towards outcasts; she wont have any bloodline other than the Uzumaki chakra potency / longevity, and *maybe* the chains, nor she will be a master of 80 elements and sub sub sub elements; on the other hand, she was a solid S-rank kunoichi even without resorting to the Kyuubi, and she will reach said height again and surpass it.**

**You can also expect a very different team 7 dynamic, she did not go out of her way to make a rivalry with Sasuke during the academy, and in the face of her competence and Sakura's own insecurities, the pink-haired fangirl will change her ways much earlier in both timelines.**

**Kakashi will be a good comrade, but a shitty sensei who doesn't know how to deal with kids, curiously, Naruko not being a mini-Minato with Obito's grin and personality will make things much easier for him than in canon.**

**The third can't help but blame her for his wife's death, despite rationally knowing it's wrong, thus, while he would harshly punish physical harm coming to her person, he can't bring himself to do more for her situation and upbringing than absolutely necessary.**

**Regarding pairings, I'm not confident enough in my skills at this point to write romance, tho I may pair some people in the background if it serves a purpose, still, even in the case this changes, this will NOT be a NaruSasu nor NaruHina, with Naruko's planned personality within this story, it'd simply not work.**


	2. Ch 2: Dango and hot springs

**Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

**Dango and Hot Springs**

6-year-old Uzumaki Naruko was stealthily making her way through the tightly forested area that was training ground 43, her next lunch, the rabbit she just hunted, was on her hand, she just had to find a place to safely cook it without being detected, and she knew just the place.

One might wonder why was such a young girl alone in the forest, the truth is she has never felt comfortable within the village: the glares, the coldness with which she was treated, and how everyone seemed to go out of their way to ignore her was bad enough, but the sheer hostility she felt from nearly everyone whenever they caught sight of her was just too much; you see, she has always been able to sense the emotions of those around her, specifically the negative emotions, she didn't know how, or why did she instinctively understood what each different 'flavor' meant, but she did. It was much more bearable when she hid, an incentive that polished her stealth to the point an observer would think she had been trained in it, but even then she preferred the peace and solitude of the forested areas at the outskirts, not to mention the food was free so long as she could catch it.

It was thanks to her wanderings that she came to understand just what ninja could do when she came across two of them training, sure, she could sense shinobi moving at high speeds across the village whenever she was there, and the old man with the strange red hat talked to her at length about it, telling her about joining the academy, but it wasn't until she saw them in person actually fighting that she understood.

She both frightened and enthralled, she knew, right there and then, that she wanted to learn, even a few minutes ago, when she was hunting, she was imagining herself as a ninja.

Coming at the end of her trek, she approached a vine-covered rock wall and brushed them aside, revealing a hidden entrance, with steps going down into the darkness.

Years ago, this was one of Orochimaru's secret bases within the village before he defected, it was protected with numerous traps and hidden with seal-based genjutsu, and it contained multiple medical equipment as well as a laboratory, a prison, an office, a small kitchen and personal quarters; but it was found a few days before the Kyuubi attack and stripped bare of protections and everything that wasn't nailed to the ground, it would have been either repurposed or sealed with concrete too had the paperwork not been lost and forgotten in the aftermath of the Bijuu attack.

Passing the switch at the wall, the lights inside turned on, it was mostly bare except the kitchen and whatever she had been able to slowly sneak inside, such as the cooking implements or the futon she had on her 'room', it was even more troublesome than her apartment to keep clean, but it was all hers. She took a couple of steps inside.

Then everything exploded into pain.

* * *

Mitarashi Anko was heading from the village to her favorite training ground with a smile on her face and enough dango to feed an Akimichi on a scroll in her pocket.

She had the next few days free, Kurenai had come from her mission last night and since Hayate was sick Yugao and Hana were free and bored, it was the perfect opportunity for a relaxing afternoon in the hot springs, followed by a girl's night out.

She was cutting across training ground 43 when her musings were cut short by a nearby scream.

* * *

24-year-old Uzumaki Naruko struggled to rise from the floor, her skin covered in sweat, her body screaming at her from the exertion, after a few seconds of effort, she managed to sit and finally took the time to look around.

She was in a forest made of ridiculously huge trees shadowing everything with a thick canopy, the soil was moist and smelt of rain, animals sounded in the background, not the usual chirping of birds one would expect, but the cries of predator and prey fighting for their lives, some of them sounding unlike any normal wild beast.

_This is either the forest of death, or..._ she looked towards the middle of the forest that was just behind her, seeing not the great tower that dominates the real forest of death, but the gigantic form of the greatest of all Bijuu holding its head in pain, meaning this place was her mindscape.

She was then struck with memories, a sensation that she was rather used to thanks to her predilection for the kage bunshin kinjutsu to train; it took more than the usual instant to receive them, and the headache she was left with was something she hadn't experienced in a long time, but then again, it was 6 years worth of memories.

She took note of a few details that either she had forgotten or they were no longer relevant by the point she had the knowledge to understand them.

But there were bigger priorities right now, like assessing her Bijuu's situation, or checking if her second greatest work of fuinjutsu passed through with her.

"Kurama, you ok?"

The greatest of all tailed beasts whined as it pressed its ears closed tightly with a grimace.

"**Not so loud!... Ughh... If this is what you humans call 'hangover', I will never understand why your species would willingly do something to get one."**

"Well, If you are not attacking or attempting to intimidate me at first chance, and you are well enough to complain, then I can assume the memory transfer worked for you and nothing catastrophic happened," Kurama was also free instead of trapped behind the bars of an oversized fox den, so her changes on the shiki fuin crossed over with her, as they were written on her soul; she was worried they would be lost with the merge.

With a thought, shining blue seals became visible on the surrounding trees for a moment before being hidden once more _Good, everything seems to be in working order_.

Using seals on skin for anything other than short-term is something rarely done in the shinobi world, as they would swiftly fade over time, and even as tattoos the seal would be easily disrupted through injury. In order to prevent this, the only method is for the seal to be engraved on the person's soul; Jinchuuriki seals, summoning contracts, and Orochimaru's cursed seal were all examples of this, the seal ROOT used wasn't, and it doubled as a suicide pill when disrupted.

Naruko's second greatest work of fuinjutsu was all over her own skin, taking advantage of the existence of the shiki fuin, the array extends from it to all over her mindscape, translating into an invisible array over most of her skin.

There were seals to help her conceal her chakra completely, seals to assist her training, storage seals that translated into hidden rooms within her mind, seals to enhance her capabilities, such as the set on her back that assisted both Kurama and her into gathering nature chakra, seals to make the whole thing hidden, seals to prevent external tampering of the array, not to mention a couple nasty surprises in case she was captured and Akatsuki attempted to remove her tenant.

And she could add and remove pieces as she saw fit without too much trouble.

It was her pride and joy, apart from her recent masterpiece that is.

They were mostly deactivated now of course, couldn't have them interfering with the transfer or killing her younger body by accident, the odds were already bad as it was.

_Time to wake up I guess._

* * *

The screams guided Anko to one of her former sensei's base, a shiver went through her spine, her former master's style was obvious for her to see. She hurried down the steps and into the bare entrance room, coming into a sight she wouldn't ever forget.

There kneeling on the floor was a young blond girl, she was screaming, her skin red, sweat poured from her, and huge amounts of dark-blue chakra was being forcefully expelled from her pores, the effect reminded her of the only time she ever saw Maito Gai fight seriously and decided to resort to the celestial gates.

_Oh shit_.

She hurried over and flipped the girl onto her back, careful not to get burnt by the pouring chakra, instantly recognizing the girl in worn and tattered clothing as the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki.

_Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit_.

Luckily for her panicking state of mind, the screaming subsided along with the pouring chakra, the girl falling unconscious, her skin and her breath slowly returning to normal. Anko checked her pulse and chakra, the girl's heart rate was falling back to normal, she wasn't suffering from chakra exhaustion, and there was no malicious youki hanging around to eat her soul, good, she had one too many malicious chakra on her attempting to do that, she didn't need another.

She finally took the time to look around the room, there was a dead rabbit next to the girl, probably her intended lunch, the place was bare, likely Konoha forces cleaned it out, her old sensei would have left the traps active and she didn't think an untrained 6-year-old would have survived them.

She picked up the girl and headed to what would have been the bastard's personal quarters, one good thing about Orochimaru is that his labs were all organized the same, he was easily annoyed by a changed work environment.

It seemed the girl had been slowly taking over the place, the small apartment was clean, there were several pots in the kitchen, there was also a table with a couple stacks of ninja tools the girl probably rescued from training grounds, and there was even a futon in the bedroom, where she gently laid the girl; she wondered why the girl hid here instead of living in the village, and guessed it wasn't too different from her own reasons to do much of the same.

Should she bring her to the hospital or wait until she wakes up?, could she bring in one of her few friends and dump the responsibility on them?, before she could make up her mind she heard a groan from the bed.

* * *

It had been four years since the war for her, but while somewhat dulled, the practices and skills that kept her alive during the war hadn't been forgotten, as such, even if her head was killing her, even if her body felt like it was on fire, even if her chakra-sensing abilities were shot to hell, she instantly knew she was not alone without even opening her eyes.

And she would recognize the one next to her anywhere, Mitarashi Anko, one of her few friends in her past timeline, and the only person she would ever consider her sensei, even if she never did so out loud in her presence, least she brings up memories of the evil snake.

She had met Anko when she was 8, having overheard a couple of genin talking about the creatures inside the forest of death, particularly, their size, she had foolishly entered the forest to hunt. She was successful on taking down her first prey, but the smell of blood attracted a pack of oversized tigers, it was only luck that the noise also attracted the snake mistress who saved her.

The lonely 8-year-old had finally found a person who didn't feel anything overly negative about her, who spent her time away from the village like her, and she was a cool ninja to boot!, she wasn't about to let go; and Anko had found a kindred spirit who wormed her way into her heart through sheer perseverance, soon, she was like an annoying but cherished little sister that attempted to emulate her.

So when she noticed that the academy was sabotaging her learning, especially the practical one, she couldn't help but fix it and maybe teach her an extra thing or two. Naruko shuddered to think what would have been of her without her neesan to teach her.

"You look like shit gaki," Anko's voice snapped her out of her reverie.

"I feel like shit," she groaned automatically as she sat, burying her head in her hands, _Why do I feel like I've gone ten hours straight pumping youki through my coils?._

"**Because, stupid human, you also brought most of your chakra with you to shell your mind and soul, chakra that didn't fit in your current puny body."**

_Oh, that explains things, so what's the damage?._

"**your body tried to incorporate it all, but ended up forcefully expelled most of it, where it not for me, your ability to use chakra would have been destroyed for life, luckily for you that is not the case,"** the smugness on the foxes' voice was almost palpable, **"your coils will need a day of rest before you can even think of molding chakra, and a couple more before you can fully use them, and even then you can expect your control to be nonexistent; still, there was some benefit out of this all, your chakra resembles your older one much more than your younger one, your reserves have grown considerably and your chakra potency has increased in an attempt to contain it."**

_Doesn't that also mean that I'll need to rework my future seal designs... again?,_ she asked back in despair.

"**Yes."**

_Damn_.

* * *

Anko stepped closer to the silent girl, at least she looked more normal now, and whatever happened to the girl seemed over, she wondered what it was, another step closer and a purple slitted eye snapped open and pinned her with her gaze.

She had never actually met the girl before, so she didn't know they were blue a few hours ago and with all weird shit she had seen in the ninja world starting with her sensei they were hardly surprising, no, what froze her for a second was the look in the eyes, there was no innocence in those cold eyes.

6-year-old kids shouldn't have shinobi eyes. _Not a kid then, or at least not in mind_.

Then again, shit happens, and she had seen and gone through more than her fair share of it.

"Found ya screaming your throat hoarse at the entrance of this place, do you know what happened to you?"

Naruko closed her eye and sighed, gingerly shaking her head in response, it wasn't as bad now, so long she didn't use chakra and didn't do anything to aggravate her headache.

"Do you want to go to the hospital or something?" a firmer negative head shake was her response.

Anko hummed, the girl seemed ok for now, whatever it was seemed chakra-related, and since she was untrained it wasn't like she could worsen whatever it was by accident, perhaps she could ask Kurenai if she knew what that was? sure, she could ask Gai, but it was far too early to deal with the green beast's antics.

Anko's hand brushed her pocket, remembering the scrollfull of dango inside, she would feel like an eel if she just left now without doing anything, food couldn't hurt right?.

"So... want some dango?"

* * *

They had talked while they ate, getting to know each other (or pretending to, in her case), they bonded over their mutual dislike of the general populace, Naruko played the part of her age and asked all sorts of questions about being a kunoichi, and in no time at all they were sitting on the shade of a tree right outside the hideout, arguing as old friends about which food was best. She couldn't believe how much she missed spending time with Anko.

"Say, I was going with a couple of friends to the hot springs, wanna come?"

* * *

Naruko and Anko walked into the springs, the others, Inuzuka Hana, Uzuki Yugao and Yuuhi Kurenai were already inside as they were slightly late, Anko wouldn't have normally invited a kid with her, or a 6-year-old adult as she seemed to be, but she liked the little blonde and she wanted to ask Kurenai's opinion on what happened.

The blonde's presence got a couple of raised eyebrows from the women present, and it was Kurenai that voiced the question on everyone's lips.

"So Anko, who's the mini-you?" they already knew, of course, but she needed a conversation opener and they both had the same hairstyle. Naruko had used a simple ponytail at this age until she had met Anko, but after so many years using this style, it was something she had done automatically as soon as she picked the hair tie.

The grinning chuunin picked up the girl and held her in front of her by the shoulders, "this is Naru-chan!, I found her all by her lonesome and decided to bring her here, Naru-chan, these are Nai-chan, Yu-chan and Hana-chan," Anko dropped the bewildered blonde in the water next to her.

A trio of exasperated sighs answered her antics. Anko just grinned wider in response.

"Anyways, how's your boyfriend Yu-chan?", the snake mistress asked in a sing-song voice to switch the topic.

"HE'S NOT MY BOYFRIEND."

Three deadpan looks were directed at her, the purple-haired kunoichi blushed and looked away.

Naruko half-listened their banter while she relaxed and let the bath take her soreness away, in three days she'd be able to fully use chakra and train, she wasn't looking forward to mindlessly grinding her chakra control into shape through countless shadow clone hours, nor to getting into shape from scratch, but it was necessary, thankfully, she had her regeneration and her fuinjutsu training aids.

Then there was her seals, she would need to re-work the blood/ink proportions for her existing designs, and further her art to take advantage of her increased potency, she dreaded the extra work, but the new potential made her giddy.

On that topic, she would have to take another look to her mother's old chakra chains jutsu, she did need at least a few new things or she'd die of boredom.

And she needed to add meditation to her list in order to stabilize her chakra and get her body used to nature chakra, she'd probably do mostly that on her two rest days.

Then there was enhancing her living conditions, and the academy starting next week, she'll need school supplies, ninja tools and new clothes; toiletries, furniture and food. Once she got her chakra control back to a decent level, between her advanced henge and the money she brought back in time she would be able to buy them, but she'd likely steal most of the generic items, she did the same when she was a kid, now she'd do it better.

Thinking of the academy, if she was to stop the ridiculous eye of the moon plan, she would need backup, that meant getting as many S-rank ninja on her side as possible, and as strong as possible, by the time shit hit the fan, sadly, there weren't many at that rank or that had the talent to reach that height.

Against Tobi's damned eye she needed to either make a miracle through seals or get Kakashi in better shape, maybe she could nudge things for him to learn Kamui earlier, and hopefully the strain of constant use would improve his crappy chakra reserves in time. Well, to be fair, they weren't bad, they were just inferior compared to nearly all S-rank shinobi.

Itachi was a definite option, though she had no idea how she would approach him.

There wasn't much she could do about Gai, or about the toad and slug sannin, and there weren't any other adults in Konoha that she could think of that could fit the bill.

Of her generation, she could only think of three apart from herself.

Neji had the right determination and talent, all she had to do is beat the Hyuuga superiority and the fate talk out of him.

As much as she hated him, and as much of a bastard he became, Sasuke also had the potential; there were too many playing puppeteer with him last time, so perhaps all she needed to do was cut some strings.

There was also Lee, without getting overly injured in the chuunin exams and wasting time on rehabilitation he would have been much stronger, and perhaps she could arrange Gai to meet him earlier; that thought gave her pause, was preventing the end of the world worth accelerating the creation of the sheer terror that was the dreaded sunset genjutsu?, well, so long as it was somebody else that suffered it she was ok with it, or perhaps she could nudge Lee's training prior to meeting Gai?, and she dared to think, perhaps she could stop the end of the world AND the sunset genjutsu from happening altogether?.

A splash of water distracted her from her heroic power trip, Anko's grinning face made the culprit obvious, so she retaliated in kind.

She didn't think she was going to let her get away with that, did she?

Unsurprisingly, things soon degenerated into a 5 way water fight.

* * *

**Author Notes:**

**The prologue was updated with some minor grammar corrections, nothing to get exited about.**

**Yes, I had Kurama give Naruko the ability to sense negative emotions from the start, it is an ability that greatly increases its vessel's, and consequently its own chances of survival, it is useless against it, and it would help to break the mind of its container early thanks to the village's hate, luckily for Naruko, she is made of sterner stuff.**

**This ability will be one of the main sources of her personality change (the other being Anko), unlike her counterpart, due to this ability she doesn't seek nor want attention from the main populace, she develops a she vs them mentality that make her much less selfless, and she doesn't grow as close as canon Naruto to the Sandaime.**

**Just for reference, the current ages and ranks are:**

**Anko 14 (c), Hana 11 (g), Hayate 13 (g), Kurenai: 21 (c), Naruko: 6, Rookie 9: 5, Yugao: 12 (g)**

**Read and Review!, I'd love to hear your opinions on this work.**


	3. Ch 3: Training, Youth and heritage

**Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Training, Youth and heritage**

_*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *WHACK*._

Naruko rose groggily, going through her morning routine with speed and grace only equaled by zombies (the B-rated movie kind, not the Edo Tensei bastards).

Her little hideout looked a lot more like a home now, the place was finally clean and the walls had been repainted (oh the wonders of shadow clones), the kitchen was fully stocked, her scavenged ninja tools were on a rack by the wall, leaving the table free (she was still amazed that her five-and-a-half year old self had managed to bring that all the way here along with the chairs), the closet now had doors, she had both a dresser and a full body mirror on her room, and most importantly, her futon was of much better quality.

As for the rest of the small facility, the biggest room had been turned into an area for physical exercise, and the other three rooms had been turned into a guest bedroom, a library (even if it was empty), and a workshop for her fuinjutsu (blood stains take forever to clean and she wanted to keep her living area free of them).

Half an hour and a hearty breakfast later, the young Uzumaki was jumping through the trees heading for the academy.

Since she couldn't pull neither her regular style nor Anko's in a 6-year-old body, she decided on a simple yet comfortable red sleeveless short yukata decorated with the Uzumaki spiral on her back, a blue obi, black tabi, dark blue split-toe shinobi sandals and hostlers for kunai and shuriken strapped over dark blue bandages to prevent chaffing on both thighs, not that she needed them with the small arsenal she had sealed on herself, but she wasn't about to advertise it.

She was too short for her favored pair of tanto without altering her fighting style, so kunai would have to do until she got older, still, she opted to carry a pair of weighted practice tanto in her backpack, in case she could find the time to train.

Her last few months had been more productive than she expected, her chakra control was acceptable at this point in time, so she decided to start to do something she didn't do until nearly her twenties in the last timeline: aggressively building up her chakra reserves, her strongest opponents last time had proven to be able to match and even surpass hers, and that was unacceptable. True, it would take her longer to get her control to the point where she could use all of her techniques as efficiently as she could before jumping back in time, but it would be long before she became genin and the result should be worth it.

Luckily, she didn't have to exhaust herself doing jutsu repeatedly in order to do it like every other shinobi, as part of the sealwork training aids she had on herself could simulate the same effect by rapidly draining her chakra, turning it into nature chakra and releasing it harmlessly into the world.

Her muscle memory was easily trained, it was all in the mind, so shadow clones could improve it, her actual physical capacity on the other hand would take time to build up, as she needed to wait for her body to grow; she could of course compensate for her child body through chakra to a certain extent, but it was still quite limiting.

She stopped for a moment at the entrance of training ground 38 to leave an army of shadow clones to take advantage of the training ground's large lake, most ninja preferred the training grounds closer to the village and only visited 38 to either train in underwater combat or attempt huge area fire or water ninjutsu, neither was a common occurrence. It was perfect for her clones to practice accuracy, drill kata or do light contact combat while water walking, killing two birds with one stone.

It wasn't as if she spent all her time shopping, stealing or training however, she had been hanging out with Anko a lot, either just enjoying her company or pestering her for amusement, she even managed to get her to start teaching her some taijutsu, she did need an excuse for her style resembling the hebiken so much and perhaps this time she'll manage to master it.

She ran trough the streets, avoiding the main thoroughfares and soon enough she had reached the academy, just in time, a one-handed seal later and a clone headed for class, that taken care of, she hid her chakra and headed off to a tree near the practice fields with a book in hand. She needed some 'me' time after all or she'd go crazy.

The teachers were more unfair to her this time, but they were also more wary; it seems her more serious attitude and her violet slitted eyes were the culprits. The other students sans Neji and Tenten were of civilian background, and did their best to avoid her, that was an improvement, the last time they were less afraid and tried to bully her, not that they had succeeded, mind, but one less annoyance was welcome.

Class itself was mind-numbing for her poor shadow clone, who spent most of the time either sleeping or mentally designing seals, although it had fun silently picking apart the subtly skewed lectures designed to produce loyal shinobi from time to time.

* * *

It was afternoon, and today was the first taijutsu 'tournament', as opposed to the regular kata drills and spars, she had just finished her book, so as her shadow clone passed below her she used kawarimi to switch places with it before having it dispel.

The fights were hardly a challenge, with only Tenten putting a decent effort even if it wasn't her forte, unsurprisingly, Neji beat all of his opponents without much difficulty, he was one of the few who had prior training, and she bet he had been throwing himself at training ever since his father's death. Luckily they were six, so there were no fangirl squeals to annoy her.

_Hmm, the teachers don't look happy that I won._

"Now we'd normally end things at this point, but since we finished early we're going to have one last fight between the best from the boys and the best from the girls, Hyuuga!, Uzumaki!, step into the ring."

_Yep, definitely not happy, and Neji left most of his foes in a lot of pain thanks to his juuken_.

"Give up!, a clan-less _girl_," spitting the word like if it was the worst possible insult, "cannot possibly defeat a Hyuuga, your defeat is fated."

She was having a hard time keeping a straight face at that, hearing chibi-Neji give one of his patented fate speeches was priceless.

The teacher smiled at the ridiculous speech, this was the bastard that had taken advantage he was retiring to make her repeat her second year, "Ready? Fight!"

Neji sped forwards, throwing rapid strikes at her that were parried or lazily dodged, he was pretty good for his age, not Itachi-level material, but good nonetheless. The Hyuuga prodigy was becoming increasingly frustrated by the hebiken's deceitful dodges and predictably he overextended himself performing a palm thrust, not one to miss such an opportunity, she parried, stepped in and did a jab to his front leg where he had mistakenly placed most of his weight, hitting the nerve cluster and causing his thigh muscles to spasm, she followed with a roundhouse kick to the head, continued the movement into a half-spin, crouched under a blindly thrown jab and countered with a handstand mule kick to the stomach, launching Neji out of the ring.

The entire crowd was in silence, there were quite a few slack-jawed faces and incredulous stares, particularly from the boy's side, hopefully that broke them out of the 'girls are weak' phase.

"Sensei, aren't you going to call the match?" the chuunin looked properly embarrassed at that and called it, before going to check on the barely conscious Hyuuga prodigy.

She never noticed the wide-eyed, bushy-browed kid looking at her with wonder.

* * *

A box was following her, a box!, she thought she was done with that kind of embarrassment after she had scared off the Sandaime's grandson in the last timeline, Konohasomething or other, it didn't matter; she sighed and walked into the nearest training ground.

By the feel of it, it was a chibi Rock Lee, just the mental image nearly made her giggle.

"You know, a moving box is a horrible disguise."

"You found me! as expected of the one who beat the class genius!" it seems his loudness wasn't something that Gai instilled into him.

Her eyebrow twitched, but that's as far as her expression changed, "even civilians would have found you with such a horrid disguise, anyways, is there a reason you were following me?"

"I want to know how you got so strong!"

She gave him a calculating look, perhaps she could instill the value of hard work into him, have him start earlier than last time, maybe even spar with him on occasion to build up combat experience. With that resolution in mind, she mentally upped her resistance seals to the usual for workouts, turned around and started jogging.

"Keep up and maybe I'll tell you."

* * *

She was suitably impressed by chibi Lee, not by his current physical abilities or his skill, mind you, but by his sheer bull-headed perseverance. They had trained literally until he dropped, and she continued for an hour more before she decided to head home.

"Wait! You said you'd tell me!" Lee rose shakily, but his eyes still held determination, good, he'll need that spirit in the future.

"You didn't manage to keep up all the way until the end you know, besides, you already know the answer," Lee was confused, but his face slowly shifted into understanding; and with her work done, she left.

* * *

It was saturday, and Naruko was sitting cross-legged under the shade of a tree meditating, her afternoon's goal was not to sense or gather nature chakra, nor to synchronize with her Bijuu, her goal was to perform the final step that would allow her to use her mother's signature jutsu.

While she had found a handful of Uzumaki scrolls when pilfering the ruins of the great villages that had destroyed Uzushio, it was in the Hokage library that she had hit jackpot; being of the Uzumaki clan, the majority were of sealing theories, but there were also several jutsu amongst them, the one on chakra chains and its derivative jutsu was now spread open before her.

She had already been successful in all the preparatory exercises, and today she would be creating the chains for the first time, granted, it would still take a lot of training to go from there to being able to use it in combat effectively, or to be able to use multiple chains like her mother could, but it was an important step nonetheless.

She slipped into her mindscape with ease and concentrated with eyes closed, focusing on the concept of 'chain' and letting her subconscious form the shape on its own; according to the scroll, while it was possible to force the shape of a chakra-constructed weapon, letting one's own inner character and resolution forge it would give a far more powerful result.

For example, her mother's chains were born out of her resolution to keep the strongest Bijuu contained, the result was more than just a thing of chakra-created steel, while her special chakra was just somewhat calming to a tailed beast, her chains were capable of outright pin the strongest one and render it near immobile while she was on her deathbed, and the desires they embodied made them useful for creating powerful barriers.

She felt her chakra flow around her, felt it shift and turn and focus, changing into a solid shape, and just as she thought it was over, she felt a large amount of chakra form something in front of her, floating in mid-air until it was completed, then it dropped on her lap.

Feeling no more changes happening, she opened her eyes and looked around her, she snorted in humor, the chain laid on the ground forming a spiral around her, and she was beginning to doubt there was any Uzumaki as tied to the symbol as her; she looked down at her lap, where the tip of the chain laid, the difference between her mother and her couldn't be more obvious, while her mother's chains were tipped by elegant kunai-like points, there in her lap laid something very different:

The end of the chain connected to a large ring, at one side of the ring were three vicious spikes as large as a finger, connected an inch from the ring by a curved rectangular guard; on the opposite side of the chain the ring was connected to a thick nail nearly as long as her arm that looked wickedly sharp, she idly wondered what the weapon said about her and if it disrupted chakra like the rinnegan spikes, tho it was unlikely she would find a volunteer to test if it did anything special to those stabbed by it.

Having completed the exercise, she sighed contently and exited her meditation, happy to have reclaimed another piece of her heritage, she ignored the fact that she had refused to learn any of her father's techniques, she had issues with the man; her mother didn't have much of a choice in what happened, he, on the other hand, did, and he choose the village over her; it was an admirable trait on a leader, but it hurt her deeply what he did, and she couldn't find it in her to forgive him.

Thinking of heritage, if her memory was correct the Hokage was going to do his biannual visit soon during her birthday, and ever since she found them she wondered if the Sandaime knew about the Uzumaki scrolls in the library, and in the likely case that he did, she wondered why he kept them from her. Tsunade she could understand, it was likely she never even checked the library unless it was to look up something, but Hiruzen would have been present if the scrolls were stored when Uzushio fell, and even if they were placed there in the Yondaime's reign, The Professor would have checked his favorite place for any new additions, it wasn't like paperwork occupied ALL of his time.

Perhaps she should do something about it?.

* * *

A woman, three teenage girls and a 6-year-old were once again exiting the onsen, this time's occasion was celebrating Yugao's promotion to chuunin, a small hand tugging at her skirt stopped the eldest.

"Anno, Kurenai-san, could I ask you a favor?"

The red-eyed chuunin turned around and instantly regretted it, as the sight that greeted her was the dreaded puppy-eyes no jutsu (Hinata-style poking fingers special edition).

She tried to resist, she really did, but she had a huge weakness for kids and her attempts were for naught, it only took a couple of seconds to break her resistance, she crouched so she was at her same height.

"What is it Naru-chan?"

"Well, I read about this medical infiltration technique that changes one's hair color, even the roots!, and I was hoping that maybe you could use it on me?, pleeease," Naruko tilted her head to the side for extra effect, Anko was looking at the scene, having a hard time restraining her laugh.

Kurenai sighed, she really couldn't say no to kids, "you do know that this changes your hair permanently, the only way to go back is to use it again yes?" Naruko nodded repeatedly at that, "what color do you want?"

The 6-year-old handed her a piece of red cloth and gave her a beaming smile, "this one!"

A minute later, the raven-haired woman asked the now red-head, "why did you wanted to make your hair red?"

Naruko's innocent face changed into an Anko-esque grin, "I'm gonna prank the Hokage!" The snake mistress couldn't resist anymore and fell to the ground laughing at Kurenai's bewildered face.

* * *

It was her birthday, and Naruko was sitting in her apartment waiting for the Hokage to show up, Hiruzen was a creature of habit, so he'll be arriving at any minute now, speak with her for a few minutes and take her out for lunch before heading back to work.

As a very old, very successful shinobi, the Sandaime Hokage was also a very observant person, always checking every minute detail of his surroundings, knowing all this, she had set up her prank.

*knock* *knock*

_Show time_.

* * *

The sight that greeted the Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, made him think he was seeing a ghost.

Naruko had foregone her usual ponytail, letting her now red hair hang freely to her mid-back, and she had applied a very minor and unnoticeable henge to slightly shift her eye color to exactly her mother's.

Still, he wasn't a Kage for nothing, so he swiftly schooled his face and proceeded as if nothing happened, the girl quickly guided him to the dinning table after greeting him and sat. The professor took quick inventory of his surroundings before sitting opposite to her.

The apartment was clean, and there was the slight smell of detergent in the air, so the girl likely cleaned the apartment right before his visit. The place was somewhat spartan, with a desk and a bookcase in the wall at his left, there was also a book with a bookmark around its halfway mark placed over a piece of paper on the table in front of her, so she was likely reading before he got here.

He struck conversation, gently prodding for her thoughts on the populace and the village, mixed in with questions on her living conditions and the academy. It was while she was complaining about some teacher or other being unfair that his eye caught something.

There were several beginner books of fuinjutsu on her bookcase.

His eyes widened a little, and as he continued to scan the titles on the bookcase a growing sinking feeling settled in his stomach.

Famous clans of the world, History of the Second Great Shinobi War, Uzushiogakure: rise and fall...

His eyes shifted to the lone book on the desk, an almanac of the graduating classes of the academy, particularly, the tome that contained the girl's parents year.

"Ne, ne, are you ok?", she asked as she stood and leaned forward making her best innocent face, 'accidentally' pushing the book on the table so it shifted to reveal the sheet of paper below.

Her question snapped him out of his reverie, but the dread soon returned when his eyes caught the title of the book and what was on the sheet.

The book was Greatest Fuinjutsu works of all time, and on the sheet of paper was a rough sketch of the shiki fuin.

The kami no shinobi became very, very pale.

* * *

**Author Notes:**

**We see a little more of her skills here, more importantly, we see a few things she *doesn't* have: rasengan, toads and hiraishin.**

**Mainly, because I don't feel like writing a character whose sole strategy is to take punches until his/her foe tires, then does a few clone-based feints followed by a rasengan or derivative that somehow doesn't cause any kind of permanent injury (unless it's the rasenshuriken).  
**

**If she seems overpowered, it is because she is, at least compared to pre-timeskip threats, don't fear, I won't be having her tightly follow canon and bolostomp her foes or worse, give her all these powers and then have the fights end the same anyways.**

**Regarding her chakra chains, the spike at the end looks like the weapons of Rider from fate/stay night, I linked a picture in my profile.**

**Read and Review!, I'd love to hear your opinions on this work.**


	4. Ch 4: The birth of team 9

**Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

**Chapter 4: The birth of team 9**

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konoha, a man who had stared down armies without fear, was sweating bullets on the inside right now. The source?, an innocent-looking now 7-year-old redhead.

How did this happen?, she was supposed to remain ignorant, become a good loyal kunoichi, be told about the Kyuubi once her sensei deemed she wouldn't do something stupid as a reaction; then once she became chuunin he'd dump her with Jiraiya to learn how to wield the beast plus whatever else his former pupil decided to teach her, and once she reached the rank of jonin and her loyalty was guaranteed she would be told about her parents.

He had considered talking to her about her Uzumaki heritage, but the thought of a demon container who wasn't a proven loyal shinobi getting too interested in seals had made him queasy, no, better for her to learn about it later, much, much later.

But now most of the plan was hopelessly derailed, she knew about half of her heritage, knew about her mother, was interested in seals, and worse of all, the book on the table would mention Jinchuuriki, and he knew the villagers had been a bit too free with their insults, last year she had asked him about a few fox and demon related ones they had thrown at her, and if she was as bright as this situation painted, she would put two and two together without much effort.

If only he could dump this problem into someone else's lap, where was Jiraiya when he needed him?

And that's not to mention the reaction the council will have if they ever find out about her fuinjutsu interest or her knowing about her burden, it had been a headache to stop them from doing something idiotic, like killing the girl and ruining the balance of tailed beasts between the great villages right after having lost a great deal of shinobi due to the attack, or preventing a potential S-rank kunoichi from going to the academy, or doing things that would turn said potential S-rank into a flight risk or have her hate the village. Didn't they know how easy it was for a Jinchuuriki with nothing to lose to give in to their beast and wreak havoc? or that if she ran off to another village, war would break out?

Again he bemoaned the fact that he had needed to give more power to the civilians after he retook the mantle in order to get the funds to recover from the Kyuubi's attack, civilians that he couldn't crush like the insects they are without greatly hurting Konoha's economy.

Sarutobi internally sighed, he had to do damage control, and that meant coming clean about a number of things before the girl learned them from another source, he hated revealing secrets, it went against his instincts as a ninja; he also needed to give the facts the appropriate spin to ensure the girl developed favorably for Konoha.

_I need to tell her about the Kyuubi, some bits about her mother and the Uzumaki to satisfy her curiosity and have her stop digging, I could probably entice her about getting her clan scrolls little by little as she progresses in rank, but only If she was a good girl and kept things quiet._

If only he knew.

He pulsed his chakra in a specific pattern to signal the ANBU to bring them lunch, this was going to be a long afternoon.

The Sandaime Hokage sighed gravely, "Well Naruko-chan, have you read about sealing scrolls? ..."

* * *

The now redhead played her part as best as she could, aided by having the body of a harmless and cute-looking little girl; faking the proper reaction to being a Jinchuuriki was difficult, and keeping up with the wizened Kage as he guided the conversation not only to manipulate, but also to know her state of mind and opinions was probably the hardest her acting skills have ever been tested, but it all went well in the end.

She looked around the room and spotted the fuinjutsu books, it would be weird if she didn't visibly continue this interest after the previous conversation, even if she was secretly way beyond this level, there were also things such as Anko's cursed seal, and she was determined to find a way to remove the bloody thing, she had been close during the last timeline, and with all the free time she had now and the increased potency of her chakra she was confident she would be capable of removing it soon, the only problem was that she couldn't do that if she couldn't approach her about it.

She idly wondered if it she should just tell Anko about her future knowledge but squashed the thought, both her and B had agreed to keep things under wraps, it was too dangerous a secret to let out, and definitely not just to avoid a minor inconvenience.

* * *

Uzumaki Naruko calmly walked into a clearing in the forested area that was training ground 43 and placed her book bag next to a tree, she was coming home from the academy after yet another uneventful day, uneventful that is except for one thing.

"I was wondering when you would confront me again, you can come out now, I know you've been following me all the way from the academy's doorstep."

Hyuuga Neji stepped from behind a tree at the edge of the clearing, an unreadable look in his eyes.

Ever since his humiliating defeat at her hands his belief in inescapable fate, and his faith in his clan's superiority had been shaken, and how couldn't it? when he, who by all accounts was an unparallelled genius within the clan, had been defeated by a clan-less orphan girl of his own age in the Hyuuga's own specialty.

By all he believed in, it was impossible, the moment she had been born with no clan, the moment she became an orphan, her future should have been set in stone, fated to be inferior to one of higher birth even if it was to the branch family; and yet, that was not the case.

So he had trained harder than ever at home, and while in class he had watched her, confident that his eyes and the training he had received in reading body language ever since he was four would figure out the source of her strength.

But for every detail he found, a myriad of questions rose; once he looked past her disinterested attitude, something that took him an embarrassing amount of time, everything about her screamed skilled shinobi: her emotional control, her awareness of her surroundings, her stealth, at least whenever she didn't fake lower skill, were all incredible, her stance, even while relaxed, held no openings, she even knew advanced ninjutsu, a solid clone technique his eyes couldn't see through. And then there were the fuinjutsu books she pretended to read in class instead of the course books, it was as if she wanted others to think she was learning sealing.

It was as if she was an ANBU faking to be an academy student, yet his eyes saw no disguise and she was far too young for that to be true.

He had exhausted what he could learn from watching her in class and today he decided to follow her, and once again she demonstrated skill beyond her age group, and worryingly, she only called him out once they were far from any possible witnesses or prying eyes.

He settled himself into a loose fighting stance, if a fight broke out, he wouldn't be caught unawares; she may be skilled, but her speed wasn't that far from his own in their last fight, and he had trained arduously since then. Little did he knew how much she was holding back in their previous fight.

Naruko carefully considered her next move, she was not unaware that he had been watching her since their last fight, or that since then his skill had increased faster than before; he was confused, his ego and fatalism had taken a hit, and all he needed was one final push.

"I know you've been watching me in class, you can't figure it out, can you? how somebody with no clan and no family defied your so called fate and had the skill to defeat you?"

She dropped her disinterested look for an expressionless mask, and settled into a fighting stance.

It was almost the same stance she used with her twin tanto, hunched low, both hands open and relaxed, her left at mouth height, her right in front of her stomach; her left leg forward, and her weight was slightly shifted to her back leg.

Neji answered by fully falling into the juuken stance, byakugan flaring to life.

"Talent, family, opportunity, they can give you great advantage, make you into an excellent shinobi, but there is a limit in how far they can take you, a ceiling in skill they can't help you to surpass, and if that's all you have, you will forever be a caged bird."

THAT hit a nerve, Neji charged forward and threw a palm thrust, hand glowing blue with chakra, Naruko swatted away the expected attack, but her counter punch to his stomach had to be canceled in order to avoid a strike to the tenketsu of her attacking arm, and with that, the fight was on.

The precise palm thrusts and finger jabs of the juuken met the deceitful dodges and backhand parries of the hebiken, both seemed in stalemate, until Neji's next attack was parried not by the hand he expected, but by a roundhouse kick to the elbow, throwing him off-balance in surprise and leaving him open by the follow-up sidekick to the ribs.

Naruko jumped back, but Neji, undaunted by being the receiver of the first hit, charged forward with another palm thrust.

The red-head decided to change tactics, gathering chakra in her hands, she clasped them as he approached, and separated them while she ducked under the blow, a chain forming between both palms that with a twist of a wrist extended and looped around the offending arm, she pulled taut, and Neji's eyes widened when he realized his arm was trapped; his half-panicked counter with his free hand was met with a similar fate, and with chakra-enhanced strength the Hyuuga genius was thrown over her shoulder and slammed against a tree. She concentrated more power into the chains and they came to life, extending and wrapping themselves tightly around the dazed prodigy's torso, leaving only his legs free.

"You are not the only one with a mark you cannot remove, nor the only one given a cage, or were you so busy observing me that you didn't notice how most adults look at me?" at that, Neji's head shot up, his eyes meeting hers, "but you are here to learn the difference between you and me, the thing that gave me the strength to crush you not once but twice."

"Uchiha, Senju, Uzumaki, Hozuki, Hyuuga, all great clans with famous names, but out of the countless good shinobi they produced, only a handful were magnificent, and didn't fade into obscurity, and in that height they were joined by others from all kinds of origins, even a few who were once nameless orphans."

Neji slowly rose to his feet, never breaking eye contact, not out of fear of an attack, but so he wouldn't miss anything of her speech, and get an answer to the doubts that had been plaguing his mind for months.

Naruko took in his gaze, satisfied that her words were getting through, she wondered how long it would take for him to realize she added her own now-dead clan to the list.

"What separates the legends who carve history from the rest is their resolution, the unshakeable will to pursue their goal no matter the obstacles, 'My art will be eternal', 'My family will be avenged', 'I will bring peace', 'My teammates will not die on my watch', 'I will become Immortal', 'I will protect my precious people', It does not matter what it is, so long as you feel strongly enough about it."

The chains vanished, and she picked her book bag, "so keep pecking at those bars, caged bird, and maybe one day you will have the strength to break free and fly."

Her piece said, she vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving a battered but pensive Neji behind.

* * *

Rock Lee was punching a training post repeatedly, lost in thought.

A dozen of scrolls laid haphazardly in a pile nearby, they had learned their first jutsu in the academy this year, but despite practicing endlessly, he hadn't managed to get even the slightest effect; frustrated, he had turned to doing research in the library, evidenced by the pile of scrolls next to him, but even that was a bust.

So he had decided to vent his frustrations in a productive way and train.

Hyuuga Neji was walking back home from an impromptu visit to the library, Naruko's speech had struck a chord in him, and there were several things she had said and implied that he just needed to confirm, thus, his trip.

She had said that only a handful of those from clans became truly great, that those that reached that height came from all parts of society. It was all true, out of countless from great clans, only a handful made a great impact in the world, and they were joined by people like Jiraiya of the sannin or the Yondaime Hokage, both orphans, both people who by his previous belief wouldn't, couldn't, amount to anything in their lives.

And just as she claimed, there was an Uzumaki clan once, tho it was supposedly extinct and not from Konoha; and now that he thought about it, there was something wrong with how nearly every adult looked at her and treated her, he was too focused on her behavior before to notice it, yet another hit to his pride.

It was while he was walking, lost in thought that the unmistakable sound of flesh pounding a training post came to his ears, he followed it, curious about who would be training this late in the evening.

It was one of his classmates, the dead last of the class in fact, and he looked like he'd been here for hours already. A year ago, he would have dismissed him without a second look as worthless, now?, he wasn't so sure.

He approached, and Lee turned around, having heard him come near.

"Oh, hi Neji-san," he looked cheerful, but to a Hyuuga, the signs of frustration underneath were impossible to miss.

"Lee," he nodded in greeting, "what are you doing training this late?"

Lee sighed dejectedly at the question, "I was trying to figure out why I couldn't make any progress at the bunshin no jutsu, went to the library and everything," he halfheartedly pointed at the scroll pile, "didn't had any luck, so I decided to train instead."

Neji took in his appearance, in particular, his raw and bloody knuckles, "how long have you been training?"

"I don't know, I started around noon," Neji's eyes nearly jumped out of his sockets at that, he had been here training for the last eight hours? that was insane!

His mind went back to the reason for Lee being here, curious that he had found no answer, and got an idea.

"Try to do the jutsu, I'll check with my byakugan and we'll know what's wrong," he didn't know why he was helping, but chalked it at wanting something to distract his mind.

"Yosh!, here I go!" Lee went through the three hand-seals of the jutsu, closed his eyes and shouted, "BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"

The Hyuuga prodigy deactivated his dojutsu and looked at Lee with something akin to pity, "there is nothing wrong with your chakra, but the pathways you should have on your fingers aren't there, without them you cannot do hand-seals, and without hand-seals you will never be able to perform most nin and genjutsu."

Lee looked down dejectedly for what seemed like an eternity, fists clenched tightly, an uncomfortable silence settled in, but just as Neji was about to offer an apology or express some sort of sympathy, the future second green beast of Konoha looked up, the fires in his eyes burning so fiercely that Neji was taken aback.

"Even if I have no talent for ninjutsu nor genjutsu, I will prove to everyone that I can be a splendid shinobi without them!… I want to prove it to the whole world!"

Had he never met one Uzumaki Naruko, Neji would have laughed at him, thinking him as a fool hopelessly struggling against certain fate. Now?, now all he could think of were her words about having an iron will and a goal to strive for, and that maybe, just maybe, here right in front of his very eyes was the birth of someone who would become a legend.

"Good," a single word, and the only response he could think of, Lee looked at him with surprise, receiving acceptance when he had expected mockery or scorn.

If the worst of the class could do that, then he would too, regardless of the main family, regardless of the oh so hated curse in his forehead, Hyuuga Neji Would. Be. Free. His pride demanded no less.

And so that night, the friendship of a lifetime was born.

* * *

Three academy students were sitting on a table just outside the academy with pensive looks on their faces.

It was the last day of class, and they had been given their final grades a scant few minutes ago, but something else had happened, something that puzzled them to no end.

"I don't get it, she's the best in almost everything, and much better than all the idiots in class, It doesn't make any sense," the one who spoke was Tenten, one of the only two girls in class that put any kind of significant effort in the practical part of the academy, neither her father nor her pride would allow her not to try her best.

"The teacher was most dishonorable in how he announced it," the second of the group was Rock Lee, who had become friends with the bun-haired girl when he had barged in her father's shinobi store looking for limb weights, but found out he didn't have enough to buy them; her father had then decided she needed a training partner of her own height, so he gave him a discount on them before dumping both kids in the small training ground on the back of the shop.

The third student, Hyuuga Neji, nodded, "He was very gleeful when he declared she would be held back a year in front of the whole classroom, it was all rather unprofessional, but did you noticed? she didn't even look surprised, it was as she was expecting it to happen and just didn't care."

He had long given up on trying to figure out the redheaded girl who had opened his eyes by beating him senseless, his new worldview had not only seen to his skills rising to new heights, but to his friendship with Lee; watching him rise from a talentless dead last to the second best fighter from the boys, to somebody who could actually give him some trouble in a fight with nothing but sheer determination was all the proof he needed of the truth of Naruko's words that day.

Tenten's face shifted to a worried expression, "she smirked when she left the classroom, remember Gero? the guy that tried to bully her all through the year? his last day at school he insulted her mum, she had the same smirk when she left that day," she paused dramatically, looked at both sides to see if anyone was listening in and leaned forward, whispering the rest of her tale, "I heard they found him all beaten up, gagged, covered in honey and buried to the neck next to an anthill, he never came back to the academy, I heard he doesn't even leave his room anymore out of fear."

All three shivered in fright.

* * *

Elsewhere, on a valley in the depths of Kaminari no Kuni, two voices shouted.

"LARIAT!"

Two tall muscular men charged at one another, slamming their forearms against each other's throat with incredible force, stopping their movement cold as they struggled to overcome the strength of the other.

They had been fighting for nearly an hour now, and they were at their last legs, both deciding to put everything in one last attack, one that symbolized their current struggle like no other.

From the day the youngest had been chosen to become the eldest's tag team partner due to his strength, they had become brothers in all but blood, a bond that survived B becoming a demon container, giving him the strength to do what none other had done and tame the untameable eight tailed bull, becoming the first perfect Jinchuuriki.

They had become Kumo's strongest team, even facing the Yondaime Hokage and living to tell the tale.

But ever since A's father died, and A had become Raikage, the eldest became fearful of losing his brother, and lost his confidence in their teamwork's strength, in his brother's strength, secluding him to Kumogakure's borders with the excuse of making him its guardian.

The struggle only lasted a few seconds, and with a heave, the youngest of the two broke the stalemate, hurling his brother into a cliff's face.

"Brother... you've been misjudging my strength ever since you became Raikage! My power doesn't just come from being Jinchuuriki! The real strength comes from somewhere else, It ain't nearly as gimmicky," he was sweating profusely, he was dead tired, but he needed to get his point across, needed to get through his brother's thick skull, get him to train with him again, get him to fight from the heart, "You're over-protective cuz you're so concerned, you lost faith in my strength, but it's time you learned."

This time it would be different, this time they would fight together as they should, this time, his brother would live.

"Becoming a Jinchuuriki, you can lose a lot, and your heart goes hollow, but if you got things you don't want to lose, they become a light to follow! The tailed beast ain't my only source of strength! What was inside my heart before the monster... shines like a sun, powers me to any length! That's where true power comes from! And that's why I'm the only one who could control the eight tails!"

A nodded in understanding, and dragged himself to his feet, "I see you're finally serious about something, tell me, what brought this change?"

B started sweating bullets, and this time not from exertion, "what do you mean? I am the same, I just stepped up my game."

A gave him a deadpan look, "B, you're a horrible liar, just a little over a year ago you were doing yet another of your antics and begging for a vacation to go to a concert, and the next day you just suddenly head to the mountains and train your ass off for months straight. Now, Tell. Me. What. Happened."

Killer B gulped nervously, "Well... you see..."

* * *

The Yondaime Raikage, A, sat at his desk pinching his nose, thinking of all the things he just learned.

It had been a headache to listen to B's long, long rap-filled narration, It had been an even bigger headache to figure out what exactly he was saying and drag the scant facts out of it all; he loved his brother, he really did, but sometimes he wanted to choke him to death.

His brother had traveled in time from the future along with one other, no he didn't understand the technique or give any meaningful hint on how to replicate it, just that it involved seals, Bijuu youki and there were a lot of swirly lights.

Apparently things had gone down the drain, and he still couldn't believe most of it, a group after the tailed beasts? ok, he could buy that, an apprentice of Uchiha Madara popping out of the blue? multiple users of an advanced and legendary version of the sharingan? a zombie ninja army? the rinnegan resurfacing? Juubi? the five great ninja villages banding together?

It was madness, and yet, his brother wasn't lying, he was serious about this, more serious than he had been about anything else in his life. A couldn't bring himself to dismiss it all as a hallucination, no matter how much he wanted to. Oh how he wanted to.

Sadly, his brother was rather sparse in details, not only of the war, but also on any worthwhile happening of the future few years, worse of all, most of it was his fault for sidelining him and keeping him out of the loop to protect him until shit really hit the fan.

And the only other person who knew, who had been more involved with all this and thus held vital knowledge, and apparently the one that managed to perform the time travel was in Konoha, and he couldn't contact her without rising alarm bells on the leaf and compromising her situation, the stakes were just too high to take such risks.

He needed an aspirin.

* * *

**Author Notes:**

**If you haven't noticed, I've been skipping months fairly fast, Naruko's second year of the academy is uneventful apart from a handful of things. Her second second year however is more important: she'd be 8, she'd be in the same year as Sasuke, Itachi just made it to ANBU captain, and the massacre draws near.**

**Internet cookies to whoever can guess what she'll do about it.**

**I would like to know what you guys think of this portrayal of Sarutobi, he isn't a grandfather figure here, he's benevolent, but he IS a Kage and puts the needs of the village over a single kid, he sees her (and his ninja/potential ninja) as an asset that can be nurtured and used like any other.**

**Can any of you guess the fate of the poor nameless retiring teacher?**

**Yes, the A/B encounter borrows a lot from canon, in my defense, B is a bastard to write. B is slightly more serious than in canon, in canon, his brother had him on a gilded cage, here, the longer war changed things, and at the final fight he didn't know whether or not Madara had killed his brother as he implied before the big boom.**

**By the way, is anyone bothered by me not doing outfit/appearance descriptions for the most part?, it's something I usually skip when reading fanfic after the Nth Naruto fic I picked, and there's the fact that may of the outfits are complex and googling the characters would give a much better picture than what I could give. Still, if you guys would prefer I add descriptions I'll do so.**

**Current ages and ranks:**

**Anko: 15 (c), Hana: 12 (g), Hayate: 14 (c), Itachi 12: (ANBU), Kurenai: 22: (c), Naruko: 7, Rookie 9: 6, Team 9: 7, Yugao: 13 (c).**

**Killer B: 22 (j), Yugito: 20 (j).**

**Read and Review!, I'd love to hear your opinions on this work.**


	5. Ch 5: Anko

**Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

**Chapter 5: Anko**

Orochimaru's sealwork was something that made any master sigh in disappointment, if it was a regular design, Orochimaru's would commonly be sloppy, inefficient, but get the job done; his original work, however, would get a cringe from any self-respecting practitioner of the art.

They were a patchwork of his regular sloppy work and small pieces of brilliance, mixed in with hack jobs and unsafe shortcuts. It is no wonder only a small percentage of people survived his cursed seals.

The snake's cursed seals were composed of three main parts: a series of connections to the victim's chakra network, a large specialized chakra storage seal, and an unknown biological agent that appeared to be capable of constantly gathering nature chakra, which powered the seal. The seal also had other secondary parts, such as a receiver that so long as the snake was near, he could incapacitate the victim with a simple hand-seal.

The seal worked by gathering nature chakra and storing it, within the storage it would be corrupted and converted by the snake's tainted senjutsu chakra already present inside and match it; then, when the seal activated, it ate the user's chakra and replaced it with the tainted natural energy. The second level of the seal involved increasing the amount of the substance that drew nature chakra, widening the connection to the user's network and constantly ruuning a small amount of the seal's energy through the user, the greater amount of tainted nature chakra was the likely culprit for the temporary physical mutations; Naruko also theorized it affected the user's emotions much like a Jinchuuriki using youki without the tailed beast cooperating.

The seal was also booby-trapped, tampering with the seal directly would likely result in an explosion, that particular part of the design was rough and inefficient, but with the amount of power in the seal it wouldn't matter.

The seal's secondary function was to accustom the victim to his chakra, and provide both a home for his soul and an easy pathway to the target's soul for Orochimaru to take over.

The problem was that in order to do the secondary functions, it needed to be engraved into the victim's soul, and for a human to do that to anything other than a baby, the victim needed to accept.

So when the cursed seal was applied, Orochimaru also pumped his victim full of a hallucinogenic poison, aiding a secondary piece of the seal that places the exhausted, weakened and susceptible victim into a nightmare genjutsu, preying into the victim's fears and ambitions to con them into accepting the seal's power, thus changing the seal from a tattoo into a soul-engraved one.

Luckily, Mitarashi Anko never accepted, so Naruko's task was an order of magnitude easier, now it was just a matter of figuring out how to tell Anko. Her work mostly done, the red-head left her workshop for a much deserved break.

* * *

Uzumaki Naruko was sipping her tea and enjoying a quiet afternoon, a rarity given her usual training schedule, when her wandering mind was interrupted by her Bijuu.

"**Gyuki just told me B spilled the beans to his brother about everything,"** Kurama's voice was tinged with amusement.

The redhead pinched her nose, _A was right, no strategy survives contact with Killer B_.

She understood wanting to tell someone, but why oh why said someone had to be a Kage of all things?, she respected his power, but she always had trouble trusting those in that position, with only one ever earning her full trust. She just hoped A, the most hot-headed Kage out of all five, didn't do anything stupid with the information.

A hand slammed a large open scroll on the table, startling Naruko out of her musings, her eyes looked up to meet the ones of a very pissed off Mitarashi Anko.

"Explain."

Naruko's eyes looked down to the scroll, there, in all it's glory, was the design of the cursed seal of heaven, a very detailed, heavily annotated, deconstructed design of the cursed seal of heaven that just happened to be the one on Anko's neck. She must have left it on top of her desk when she decided to take a break.

And just her luck, it happened a day the snake mistress was crashing in her spare bedroom, her regular home, the tower in the forest of death, was undergoing maintenance work to prepare it for the chuunin exams, Naruko's hideout allowed her not only to still stay outside of the village proper, but also spend more time with her favorite redhead.

Naruko could lie, reveal her mass usage of shadow clones and blame it on any accelerated progress in the art of seals, but with B revealing things, she didn't feel like doing that.

It didn't help that she wasn't comfortable keeping so much hidden from her sensei, and time only seemed to make it harder. She blamed it on having never trained for long-term infiltration, as nobody in their right minds would use a Jinchuuriki for that.

She sighed, settled her tea to the side, and locked gazes with her sensei, she pushed the seat next to her with her foot, "you'll want to be sitting for this."

"I think it's better if I show you," she slowly extended her hand, and gently touched Anko's arm. Normally, one would need a mind jutsu to bring someone else to one's mindscape, but some things were just simpler for a Bijuu than to humans, and some of those, by extension, for perfect hosts as well.

A moment later, Mitarashi Anko was standing on a clearing in a rather familiar place, "The forest of death?"

"My mindscape actually, but you can guess where the inspiration came from," Anko didn't recognize the voice, it was familiar in tone to the little redhead, but it sounded much older.

A black and red blur landed next to her, revealing a female figure half a feet shorter than her, wearing an all-black ensemble of split-toe shinobi sandals, tabi, ninja pants with the hems wrapped in bandages, dull metal shin guards identical to her own, a short halter top and dull two-piece metal arm guards that protected both her forearms and the back of her hands, worn over bandages to prevent chaffing.

Anko's eyes moved up, there was a fang pendant eerily similar to her own, identical, in fact; the woman's hair was red, and in the same style as hers only slightly longer, she had a heart-shaped face, and her features would look soft if it weren't for the six whisker-like marks that gave her a feral look, she also had a very familiar pair of purple slitted eyes.

"Damn, I know I said you didn't have the mind of a kid, but this is stretching it."

Naruko grinned at that, a grin that looked even more like her sensei's than in her child body, before her face returned to a neutral expression, "Well, as much as I'd like to banter, I did brought you here for a reason, so."

The redhead closed her eyes, and the forest around them shifted, color draining from their surroundings and settling into eerie blues and purples, the animal sounds common to the forest of death changing into ghostly ones, slowly, wisps of light started to appear, lazily dancing around the branches and trunks; Naruko extended her hand, palm up, and a group of the will-o-wisps closed in, darting around her arm and fingers.

Opening her eyes, Naruko offered the lights in her hand to her mentor, "these are some of my memories, they should explain things to you far better than I could otherwise," and with that, the lights shot to the purple-haired kunoichi.

* * *

The next thing Anko knew, she was watching through foreign eyes and with no control of her body as it ran in panic through the forest of death, a glance behind told her the reasons, big, furry clawed reasons with huge fangs, a pack of giant tigers was hunting her.

Then, just as one of them was about to pounce, a sense of vertigo filled her, something her shinobi mind recognized as an involuntary kawarimi, and the next thing she knew, she was on a branch high above where she was before.

She gripped the branch tightly as her panic resided, looking down and was surprised to see herself, knocking out the beasts with ease, before looking up to her and grinning.

The next thing she knew, the other her's still-grinning face was upside-down and inches from hers, making her scramble back to the trunk, the other Anko was sticking to the underside of the branch above hers.

"So, what's a little gaki doing in my little playground?" her counterpart asked, adding a little bit of killing intent to it.

She was paralyzed, her heart was hammering, and it took her what seemed an eternity to answer.

"Hunting," the voice's was Naruko's, but the tone lacked something she couldn't place, Anko was also rather confused, since she had no memory of this encounter.

Her counterpart rose (lowered?) an eyebrow at that.

"Stores charge me too much, so I hunt, I heard animals here were bigger."

Both Ankos snickered at that, "They also have bigger teeth," her counterpart added while smirking, and Naruko's body shivered.

A strange look came to Anko's eyes, but she swiftly covered it with a grin, "Come, I'll treat you to some dango, but don't think I'll make this a regular thing!"

* * *

The memory faded into a new one, she was standing in front of an old mirror, a crack going thorough the middle; the Naruko she could see in her reflection was slightly older than the one she knew, as well as blonde, but the hair was in the same style; the eyes were blue and much less jaded than the ones she had just seen as well; she was wearing a worn-looking brown t-shirt and khaki shorts, as well as hostlers on both legs.

The memory blurred, and she was now sitting on a park bench next to her memory counterpart, both eating dango.

"And then he pulled me away from the rest and started teaching me different moves than the others that felt all wrong, and set things so I didn't have a sparring partner, and nobody did a thing about it! I know the bastards hate me but this is ridiculous!"

Memory Anko looked at her, the same strange look in her eyes as the last time, "What do you mean you know they hate you?"

She felt Naruko's body shrug, "I've always been able to feel that kind of thing, most of the village hates me, some fear me, most of the other kids dislike me, even the Hokage resents me a little deep down, you're the only one that I know that I can sense that doesn't."

Anko's face grew pensive, and both fell silent for a minute, she looked back at her, same strange look in her eyes that she was beginning to understand was empathy, "Tell you what, meet me here tomorrow after class and I'll train you a little, can't let the bastards win can ya?"

* * *

"Anko-neesan, do you know why everyone else hates me?" memory Anko looked like she was debating something with herself, a minute later she sighed, and then looked straight at her eyes.

"Shit... I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I don't, but I'm not allowed to tell you why."

Naruko looked down at her feet, they were sitting in the same bench as last time, and the empty box she could see at the edge of her vision told her that they've been eating dango this time as well.

She felt a hand ruffle her hair, "I know it sucks, but you'll either have to wait until it's revealed to you or figure it out yourself."

* * *

She was in an apartment, having just finished eating a quick lunch, she grabbed a book bag and a set of keys from a table and headed for the door, but stopped in surprise when she opened it.

There, on the floor, was a plastic bag, she checked it, and it had a couple of books and a few scrolls, curious, she picked one of the books and leafed through it.

It was a beginner's book on fuinjutsu, and it looked somewhat worn, Anko instantly recognized it, it, and likely the others contents of the bag, were the same she picked up when she tried, and miserably failed, to learn the art in an attempt to remove the seal from her neck.

* * *

Some other minor memories followed, a few were of training, but most of them were of the times they were relaxing together or just talking; Anko was still puzzled about their existence, but the fact that they keep showing everyone growing older gave her a Manda-sized hint, even if it was impossible.

"Anko-neesan," by the sound of Naruko's voice, it was going to be a serious conversation; they were on a clearing, and from the feeling of the blonde's body they had been training for a while, "Am I a Jinchuuriki?"

Memory Anko turned around to face her, "Yes," a simple answer.

"Kyuubi?" Naruko continued, unsurprised, it seemed the blonde was just confirming her discoveries, by the height and the other memories she guessed she would be around ten, Anko was impressed.

"Yes, It suddenly appeared right outside the village, you can probably guess the rest."

Naruko nodded, but then she tilted her head to the side, "Bijuu don't just appear," a simple fact, and yet, Kyuubi did, something that had puzzled many in Konoha to no end.

"They can be summoned, like Madara supposedly did, or its previous container failed... it's that why _he _choose me?"

"What do you mean?" both Ankos were rather puzzled at that point, not seeing the blonde's chain of thought.

"I've been sneaking into the public and academy libraries a lot, I've been searching for anything on seals and later, the Bijuu, Kyuubi in particular, when I came upon something... curious."

"When the Shodaime fought Madara the Valley's End, one account I found says his wife was with him, I got curious and checked for anything on her, I barely found a thing, but I did find her name, she was Senju Mito, formerly _Uzumaki_ Mito."

"Did you know there's absolutely nothing on the Kyuubi's whereabouts from that fight to the attack? and it gets better, I checked the academy archives for any other Uzumaki like me, shortly before Mito's death a new student was added in the middle of the school year, Uzumaki Kushina, who died the day of the Kyuubi attack."

"Is that why he choose me? why it was revealed to the village? why I was left with nothing? petty revenge to punish the sole Uzumaki left for the family's failing to contain the most powerful Bijuu? when every other great village struggles all the time to keep theirs contained?" Naruko was shouting and crying by the end of it, memory Anko just hugged her, and let her cry herself out on her shoulder.

* * *

The next memory was a happier one, apparently, graduation had come and the both of them were having a little celebration, by the slight buzz feeling and the half-empty bottle next to her, Anko could guess that her counterpart had just initiated the blonde into drinking, she just hoped she didn't include a memory of the morning after.

"Close your eyes a sec," memory Anko asked, she was a little flushed from the alcohol but she didn't look drunk yet, Naruko complied, and she felt a pair of hands place something around her neck, "You can open them now."

Naruko's hand went to the object at her neck, by the feel of it, it was a fang-like pendant on a thick cord, her eyes darted to Anko's neck and noticed her usual pendant wasn't there.

"It's one of the few things I have left of my older sister, she gave it to me when I graduated, so now I'm giving it to you, Imouto."

She was instantly tackled by a blond missile.

* * *

From then on there were mostly memories were her other self wasn't present, one curious thing she noticed was that they felt detached, as if the memory didn't have, or more likely, she wasn't being shown, anything other than sight or hearing.

She saw what appeared to be her teammates, a pink-haired girl and who appeared to be an Uchiha amongst several other genin receiving the explanation for the second stage of the chuunin exams from none other than memory Anko.

The next memory however made her blood turn cold, there, in the forest of death, she stumbled into the snake sannin himself attacking the Uchiha teammate, the pink haired one shaking like a leaf in a branch nearby, a short battle followed, where Orochimaru toyed with them before knocking Naruko out, what the snake did afterward however was shortly revealed: in the following memory she awoke to see the Uchiha using the power of the cursed seal to fight off a group from an unknown village, the very same model Anko had on her neck.

The memories then painted a grim picture for the future, A failed invasion of Konoha, the Sandaime's funeral, a mysterious organization of S-class missing nins after the Bijuu for an unknown purpose, something that there was no way it was good, the memories then jumped a few years, more battles with Akatsuki, the five great ninja villages allying themselves against this common threat, and then there was war.

There were only a handful memories of the war, all of them of briefings on the status of things, with the final one being the preparation to a large decisive battle, the last battle, as she later found out, as the next memory was the entirety of the final confrontation, the amount of power being thrown around like nothing was incredible, and the incomplete Juubi was probably the most frightening thing she had ever seen.

The final memory was the final step of the ritual that brought what had been her pupil and little sister, back in time.

* * *

Naruko watched as a flabbergasted Anko steadied herself with the nearest tree, the forest was back to its original colors, and the will-o-wisps had disappeared.

She felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders, not having to lie anymore to her sensei, with all the other changes at the time, she hadn't noticed just how much that had stressed her.

"So... let me guess, the day you traveled back to was when we first met?" at the redhead's nod, she continued "what's the big plan? and please tell me it includes taking down the snake bastard himself," the last part was said with a vicious gleam in her eyes.

"Making a detailed plan is just asking for it to go down the drain, so far it's keeping a low profile, training and getting as many either S-rank shinobi or with the potential to be that strong ready for when shit hits the fan, I got a couple with potential to start training early and I can hopefully add another one next academy year, but I have no idea how to approach the adults; I would love to take down the snake AND his pet early, Kabuto was a royal pain in the last war, but I have no information network at my disposal; if we're lucky he'll go again for Itachi's runt of a brother and expose himself, if we're really lucky he'll do it the same way as last time, hopefully none of the changes we'll be making will change that."

Anko didn't look too happy at that, but a good chance to take her pound of flesh of the bastard was better than the nothing she had, "What about the other Jinchuuriki? if they can't capture them you can prevent the whole disaster right?"

"Tricky, Kurama and Gyuki have been talking to the other Bijuu, so far they are in agreement to fully cooperate in any fight against Akatsuki, but more than that would be... complicated."

"How so?"

"Not all Jinchuuriki are trustworthy, one is a brainwashed puppet for Tobi, for example, so I'm leaving any decisions regarding them to their respective Bijuu, if they deem them worthy and capable of keeping their preparations secret, they'll push them in the right direction."

They felt into silence, Anko was still processing everything she was shown and told, so it was only after a minute that an idea occurred to her, "You weren't planning on telling me at all, weren't you?"

Naruko shrugged, "I wasn't planning on telling anyone at all other than the Bijuu, deal with the seal on your neck and encourage you to train? yes, tell you about the time travel? no, but B slipped and told his brother, so I didn't feel like putting the effort to make an excuse about having the deconstructed design of your seal."

Anko's eyes widened at that, "You can remove the seal!? even Jiraiya said it wasn't possible."

Naruko snorted, "I've surpassed the pervert a long time ago, besides, I doubt he tried his best, Orochimaru's original work is a headache to decipher, the chicken scratch of fuinjutsu; I've been studying that cursed seal of yours for a while, the war kinda put things into hold, but now I'm certain I can remove it."

"There's still a risk tho, so I'm giving you three options: I can add a better block on the seal and make it harmless, with no risk to you; I can remove the seal altogether, there's a small chance one of the booby traps on the thing will fire, but I'm confident it won't happen."

Anko was liking the second option, being free of that blemish would be a dream come true, still, she was too curious not to ask, "What's the third option?"

"The seal feeds itself not only from your chakra, somehow, somewhere, Orochimaru found some animal or bloodline capable of constantly absorbing natural energy and put a piece of said thing's flesh in the seal, and probably in himself as well, you survived the seal, so you're compatible; the third option is that I remove all of the seal but that part, then rewrite the design into something safer."

Naruko looked at Anko sternly, "The risks are the same as the second option, but you'll also have additional danger: nature chakra can make you a lot stronger, but it can also easily kill you if you can't balance it; you'll need to train yourself up just to have the chakra capacity to handle it, and then be trained personally in order to wield it, and that's before I remove the cursed seal, you'll only have it sealed until then."

With everything that was at stake, and the increased chance to have payback, it was unsurprising Anko picked option three.

* * *

Several chuunin sat around a table, where a stern-looking old man was presiding, his gray hair was cut short and neat, his eyebrows were in a scowl, and by the wrinkles and the total lack of laugh lines one would think the man never laughed in his life or used any other facial expression than imitating a pitbull, and that would be mostly correct, the shrewd old man who had obtained his current position after loosing his left leg in the Kyuubi attack was also capable of a greedy half-smirk, his last act as a shinobi had saved several important businessmen that later became part of the newly formed civilian council, an act that was the start of many mutually beneficial arrangements.

He was Fujiwara, the headmaster of Konoha's ninja academy.

"Now that you're all here, I hope for your own sakes that you have everything prepared for the coming term," that got a series of nervous nods from the chuunin academy teachers, "Funeno, you and your assistant will be teaching Takata's old class starting this term," Funeno Daikoku breathed out in relief, normally, the large man would have protested, his previous class, 2-A, had the largest number of clan heirs in the last twenty years, It was a privilege to teach it, except for one detail.

The demon had been delayed a grade, and the Hokage had intervened and placed her on 2-A to strengthen the Jinchuuriki's connection and loyalty to Konoha through said clan heirs. Normally, having her on his class would just make him uneasy, but after what happened to her previous teacher nobody in their right minds would want that position, a shiver ran through his spine at the mere thought.

So, following the sacred tradition since time immemorial, the task fell to either the new guy or the biggest sucker in the room.

There was one in the room that was both.

"Umino, you will be teaching class 2-A, Mizuki will be your assistant," Iruka was speechless, it was unheard of to skip to a main teaching position straight from the teacher's academy, and to the class with seven clan heirs too, it's true that teaching was his passion and he had gotten the best grades from the teacher's academy in the last decade, but still, the humble man couldn't just simply accept such a thing, "B-but Sir!.. I'm not.."

"Nonsense, you're qualified, you're ready, are you really going to throw away such an opportunity?" the old man quickly countered.

"Y-Yes Sir! I will do my best!" Iruka quickly said, unnoticed by him, the rest of the room let out their held breaths and glanced at him with pity.

* * *

Anko decided she would have a few choice words with a certain redhead about her idea of chakra capacity training, she also decided to never introduce her to Maito Gai.

Who was she kidding, they probably traded training tips in the last timeline.

Anko always had good reserves, and now with her cursed seal completely blocked she was easily amongst the top ten with the most chakra in the village even at halfway through her teens, unfortunately, that wasn't enough, according to Naruko, for her to be able to handle senjutsu she would need reserves considered large even by S-rank shinobi standards.

With her having reached the point were normal methods would be time-consuming and only increase them slowly, she had instantly jumped into the opportunity when the redhead said there was a faster way. Said faster way as it later turned out was a series of seals that placed a constant, significant and not to mention painful drain on her chakra, once depleted, the speed that it was drained would slow down to match the speed she recovered it, forcing her body to produce it faster, and making it an exercise of willpower to do anything other than lay on the ground and moan in pain.

Luckily, her torturer allowed her three days a week to recover, unluckily, on those days the flow was reversed, not only swiftly filling her coils, but keeping them slightly stretched to slowly widen them, Anko hadn't decided which of the two halves were more painful.

Naruko had told her it would only take her two month 'vacation' to reach the limit on how much she could use this method without permanent damage, she didn't know whether to choke her for consuming all the vacation days she had accumulated since making chuunin or for putting her through this.

* * *

Iruka entered the classroom along with Mizuki, where the children were cheerfully talking to one another, happy to see their friends, they all looked like good kids.

"Good morning class," he said in a strong confident voice and with a smile on his face, happy to be teaching at the academy for the first time.

He was completely ignored.

His eyebrow twitched, his smile looking a little fake, still, they were distracted, maybe they didn't hear him over all the noise? yes, that must be it, so he repeated his greeting louder this time.

The brats were still doing as they pleased, a few were even throwing around crunched paper balls.

A string of hand-seals later, and the newest teacher's head grew to a gigantic size as he projected some killing intent, "I SAID GOOD MORNING CLASS!"

They all became silent and still, good.

"I am Umino Iruka and I will be your teacher, this is my assistant Mizuki, I expect you to refer us as sensei from now on," his head was back to normal, but his smile was still somewhat fake, "I will now start the roll call, you _will_ answer when I say your name."

The roll call progressed smoothly, with the brats still scared into compliance, that is, until he came upon one specific name.

"Uzumaki, Naruko," he internally cursed the gods for putting him in charge of the fox brat.

The red-haired girl rose her head from her previous sleeping position and gave him a lazy glare, a shiver ran through his spine as he looked at those slitted eyes, "Here," she answered, with barely more energy than the Nara, and just like the clan heir, she went back to sleep.

This was going to be a long year.

* * *

**Author Notes:**

**Sorry for the delay, I had all the Anko parts fairly quick, but I wanted to add something else, yet didn't want to start with the Uchiha part and leave it in a cliffhanger. So I added poor idealistic Iruka and his descent into the madness that is teaching spoiled 7-year-olds.  
**

**In canon the cursed seal contains a conscious piece of the snake's soul, I'm removing that bit, the piece's consciousness can't be shared with the original, or it would've been trapped in the eternal genjutsu of the Sword of Totsuka along with it, and I really can't see an isolated Orochimaru piece not going insane with boredom or trying to overthrow the original, think about it: it can't move, gloat or run experiments, all it can do is watch whatever is around the victim and play with its head from time to time (can't do it often, insane followers aren't that useful).**

**That, and the Orochimaru revival crap Sasuke pulled using impromptu fuinjutsu and a lump of flesh is bullshit, utter and total bullshit.**

**I'm happy on how her past self finding she's a Jinchuuriki turned out, It lets me start her on seals earlier, as well as showcase how things progressed different from canon Naruto.**

**In canon, Naruto is closer to the Sandaime, who encouraged an idealist mindset and a borderline pathological forgiving attitude, and he was there right after Naruto found out about his tenant to pick the pieces, tell him how Minato believed in him and wanted him to be seen as a hero for containing the evil fox and all that mushy shonen jump stuff.**

**Here, Anko countered her sabotaged education early, encouraged her to think more as a shinobi, and leaving her those books pushed her into developing the capability to research; she finds out on her own and is left to find her own conclusions, which thanks to her different mindset are rather grim, after all, she is very familiar with petty revenge; which leads to her big grudge against Minato, by the time she found out he was her father and what happened that night, she simply switched to hating him for putting the village above her.**

**Funeno Daikoku is a canon, but very very minor character, Takata is an unimportant OC, old man Fujiwara is a slightly (as in, barely) more important OC who'll have a couple of scenes at most.  
**

**Current ages and ranks:**

**Anko: 16 (c), Hana: 13 (c), Hayate: 15 (c), Itachi 13: (ANBU C), Kurenai: 23: (c), Naruko: 8, Rookie 9: 7, Team 9: 8, Yugao: 14 (c).**

**Killer B: 23 (j), Yugito: 21 (j).**

**Read and Review!, I'd love to hear your opinions on this work.**


	6. Ch 6: Itachi

**Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Itachi**

Mitarashi Anko had survived those hellish two months that the little devil in front of her dared to call vacation-time training, only to be told with a smile that her chakra control was shot to hell as a result; a two-hour chase involving many explosions and countless flying instruments of pointy death later, she had been conned into trying yet another training program from the little girl.

It wasn't that either training didn't produce results, because her chakra capacity was higher than she ever dreamed of and she brought it to acceptable control in a week and back to her previous efficiency in little under a month, when it would have normally taken a couple of years. The problem was the girl's methods were nothing short of torture; not only the exercises were hell, but after she had reached what the redhead deemed acceptable, she taught her the kage bunshin jutsu, had her make as many shadow clones as her mind could handle and made them train as well.

If it wasn't for her desire to get rid of the thing on her neck and delivering his just deserts to Orochimaru, she would have never been able to stick to it.

Still, her chakra capacity was even bigger than required, her control was pretty damn good, and now it was time to learn this senjutsu thing, of which her torturer had dropped little tantalizing hints whenever her resolve wavered.

"The basis of senjutsu is the ability to gather the natural energy around us, balance it with your mental and physical energy, and use the resulting combination instead of your normal chakra."

"This is not just an increase in your capacity, senjutsu chakra is not only more potent, making anything you do with it more powerful, it is also stabler and easier to control than regular chakra; in the case of genjutsu, it will make them harder to shake off and more insidious, as nature chakra cannot be detected by anyone not trained in senjutsu; in the case of taijutsu, reinforcing your body with senjutsu will give you greater speed and strength, and your greater connection to nature will allow your senses to keep up with your increased speed; in the case of ninjutsu, it will also increase your connection to the elements: raw elemental manipulation will become instinctual, and your control over elemental jutsu will increase accordingly."

"Wielding natural energy is not without danger however, the balance must be precise, too little and all you'll do is disrupt your control, too much and you'll have physical transformations while you hold the technique, given your contract with the snakes, those transformations will be snake-like, way too much, you'll permanently turn into a snake statue and die."

Anko grimaced at the later two, but was still determined to learn the skill, dangerous or not it sounded incredibly powerful, "so what are we doing here of all places?" she gestured around, the both of them were sitting cross-legged on the roof of the tower in training ground 44.

"I'd rather not have any interruptions, and it will be easier to learn in an area that is high on natural energy, doubly so if you are intimately familiar with it, short of going to the home of the snake summons, this forest is the best place for you to learn."

"So you're going to teach me now?" the snake mistress smiled eagerly, nearly bouncing in anticipation.

"I'm not the one who's going to teach you," Naruko said, closing her eyes and confusing Anko.

Naruko reopened her eyes, now delineated with black rings, her irises now a glowing crimson red, her birthmarks darkened, widened and deepened into thick clefts; she gave her a vulpine grin, revealing her larger and sharper canines, **"I am."**

Mitarashi Anko gulped, hoping the strongest tailed beast wasn't as much as a slave driver as it's host.

* * *

"As kunoichi, we must not only be skilled in ninjutsu, but also possess a wide amount of knowledge and culture," said the stern-looking teacher of the class, Suzume was a chuunin who had gotten promoted after long service and proven loyalty; she hadn't been in the field since her first genin year, after which her teammates moved to other areas while she switched to administrative jobs and working at the shinobi library until her current academy assignment.

"if you cannot sneak into enemy territory and pass for a normal woman, then being a spy will not be possible," continued the lecture of the curly-haired sensei, "today's lesson will be in flower arrangement, now people, go off and pick some flowers."

Let it be noted that she was also a card-carrying member of Kakashi's fanclub, between that and never really getting to see the darker side of the shinobi world, she saw no reason to discourage similar behavior in her pupils, or prepare her students as it was her job for the realities of a field kunoichi's life, as she thought they were too young to learn.

Naruclone-351 was bored out of her (its) skull, not that she had a skull or actual gender, being a chakra construct that only emulated the real thing; regular classes were bad enough, but 'kunoichi' (and she used the term rather loosely) classes with Suzume took the usual boredom and seasoned it with copious amounts of despair.

She could cheat in every given task, of course, not that it mattered, with how subjective the assignments regularly were Suzume would always grade poorly her least favorite student. Curiously, it wasn't due to the Kyuubi this time, Suzume simply hated her ungirlish attitude, as last year Tenten had suffered alongside her through the same.

Having wasted enough time pretending to work, she made a quick glance around and started copying what seemed the most popular combination, it wouldn't do to just, say, duplicate Ino's work, that was a sure path to getting discovered and failed.

She had been too young last time to focus on anything other than her general dislike for this subject, it was only now with years of foresight that she could see just how much damage this woman and her ilk did to a whole generation of kunoichi, there were barely any noteworthy ones after her year other than the youngest Hyuuga, and while there were several outstanding ones from her current year, apart from her they were nearly worthless until circumstances pushed them to train, and they were very lucky to either come from a clan or have a Kage as sensei.

Normally she wouldn't care a whit about her comrade's education, but something affecting half of the student population was too large to ignore if war broke again, that, and the classes offended her kunoichi pride.

What to do was a different matter, it wasn't pressing or personal enough to do something drastic, and all she really needed to do is to rouse one or two well-connected kunoichi and watch things play, the problem was that she didn't have any contacts with higher ranked shinobi that could bring this to light, so she would have to settle for a more indirect approach.

Naruclone-351 yawned and laid on the grass, there was still about half an hour left of the class, so she might as well take a nap.

* * *

A black blur stealthily landed on a tree branch in the courtyard of the ninja academy, just a few meters in front of a certain classroom, gazing at the students within through a weasel-shaped mask.

ANBU captain Uchiha Itachi had come here straight after debriefing from a rather difficult mission, intent on checking up on his brother before heading to sleep off the rest of the day, his uniform had a few blood stains and tears, and he was running on the last dregs of the soldier pill he took a couple of hours ago.

"You're in my light," said a voice right behind him, given his frayed nerves, it was understandable that he nearly jumped out of his skin, twisting around swiftly and pulling out a kunai in his panic, instead of reacting with his usual stoicism.

"My my, you're a jumpy one Itachi-san," Naruko commented with eyes alight with amusement as she lowered her book, she had been wondering exactly how she would approach him for some time now, going to the Uchiha compound was a big no, and his ANBU career kept him rather busy most of the time; more importantly, he was too different from the Itachi she knew to track him down through her sensing abilities in the largest shinobi village.

Itachi once again silently cursed the idiot that assigned him the mask of his namesake, as if being the shortest ANBU and the publicity of his position and skills that his clan had encouraged wasn't enough to make his identity easy to guess, the mask not only added to that, but it also made it confusing to know whether others were referring to his ANBU name or if his identity had been discovered.

Itachi relaxed his pose and stored away his kunai, while he had never met Uzumaki Naruko, he certainly knew of her and the face markings made her easy to recognize, her hair and eye color were different from the ANBU file he had leafed, but the former was easily changed and it wasn't unheard of for the later to change with age, and that was without taking into account demonic tenants.

His photographic memory also made guessing her mother's identity, something that was classified even in the ANBU file on the girl, easy; the shape of her face and her new hair color were identical to his mother's best friend, one that had been at the final stages of pregnancy before the Kyuubi attack, he guessed that the girl also knew of her or at the very least had strong suspicions of her mother's identity, given that she was now a redhead.

Distracted by these realizations and tired as he was, it took him longer than usual to realize why he hadn't sensed her before when he jumped into the branch, her chakra presence was nearly non-existent, and her lower body was slowly fading into view, a telltale of a deactivating Meisaigakure no Jutsu (1), he was impressed with her skill with the technique, let alone her knowing the A-rank camouflage ninjutsu at all, somebody must have been training her.

"You should be in class," he commented in a dry monotone.

The girl pointed lazily towards the classroom and gave a one word answer, "clone."

Indeed, a quick glance to the side and his sharp eyes saw the sole redhead inside sleeping on her desk, he rose an eyebrow behind his mask at that, it took either a lot of skill or using one of the few handful clone techniques capable of independent action to make a clone behave like the real thing without being in the same room, and the latter where either obscure, required a kekkei genkai, or were kinjutsu that should be out of her reach.

"You sent a clone to sleep in class?"

Naruko shrugged, "Class is boring."

Itachi could understand that, he had only spent one year at the academy, but between how hard his family pushed him in training and with how utterly _basic_ everything was he had been severely tempted to skip class and sleep in, not that his family would have let him get away with that; and more than once he had used a genjutsu to fake paying attention while he slept the exhaustion from his training off. Given the girl's skill he had seen so far, her situation was likely to be similar, and would have been graduated and on the field already if Konoha was even slightly pressed to increase it's shinobi numbers for either war or recovery like it was in his case.

Naruko on the other hand was comparing the Itachi she knew from this one, it was surprising just how young he looked, Sasuke was taller at that age, but what was more startling was how different he felt to her extra sense. The Itachi she knew was a puzzle for a long time, while full of sorrow and self-loathing for what he had done and still had to do, it was incredible how little she felt from him during their fights, no anger, no blood-lust, no hate, it was only later that she understood why, he was a pacifist to the core. This one was much the same, but without the death of his best friend and the massacre on his shoulders he barely felt like the same person, although the difference wasn't as big as with Sasuke, whom she wouldn't have recognized if it weren't for the stupid haircut.

"Here to check on your brother?"

Itachi, who had been gazing at the academy classroom while keeping her at the edge of his vision, looked back at her, so she had guessed his identity then, he sighed internally, he really should put a requisition for a different mask if an eight-year-old civilian could pin his identity at first meeting, a skilled one mind you, but a kid not in the shinobi ranks nevertheless.

Still, it was an opportunity to get a different opinion on his brother, and gather more info of what looked like a promising comrade in the future, "What can you tell me about him?"

"Talented, skilled tho he lacks polishing in several areas, to the point that it suggests inconsistent training; not as arrogant as most Uchiha, but still more than the rest of the class; his sole motivation is impressing his family and not letting them down, you above everyone else, he'll need to get rid of his impatience and strengthen his will if he ever intends to reach your level."

It was an honest assessment, and one that told Itachi that his father and mother weren't paying nearly as much attention to the training of his little brother as they had with him, something he suspected but couldn't confirm with how much of his time ANBU took in addition to the training from his father on inheriting his position as clan head, which largely consisted on long diatribes on the clan's worth and traditions along with some paperwork; he barely had time to spend with his brother as things were.

It told him that all the talk of the clan was starting to get to Sasuke's head, and it also told him that Uzumaki Naruko would one day become a very good kunoichi, the mind was the shinobi's most dangerous tool after all.

Both fell into a comfortable silence after that, one to read, the other to rest and watch his little brother, thinking in what he could do to fix the failings that had just been pointed out to him.

"Something is very wrong with your clan as of late."

That got the youngest ANBU's attention, exhausted or not, it was a dangerous enough topic that had him alert once more; he carefully studied her face and body language and resisted the temptation to activate his sharingan to gather more detail, his chakra was low enough as it was.

It was risky to reveal her sensing skill, but unlike the conversation with the Hokage, she couldn't play the innocent little girl and still get Itachi on her side.

She closed her book and laid it on her lap, giving him her full attention, "I've always been able to feel negative emotions, and your clan... well, what I've been feeling from it gives credit to those old stories about the Curse of Hatred, and it's getting worse every year; your clan will not be content with just simmering behind it's walls for long."

He locked gazes with her as she talked, there was no lie in her words, but Itachi could see the girl held many secrets, revealing what she just did was a calculated move, possibly the whole conversation was so that he would take this statement seriously instead of dismissing it out of hand, not that he would, or could afford to do so.

He had been seeing the same thing ever since the Kyuubi attack, relations with the rest of Konoha were at an all time low, friendships outside of the clan were looked down upon, traditions were being upheld more rigidly, and talk about the clan's superiority and how little it was appreciated was on nearly every pair of lips within the compound's tall walls. More worryingly, the elders and his father had been gathering in secret more often, and the clan was steadily stockpiling weapons and explosive notes.

He had nothing concrete yet, but if his suspicions were correct, the result couldn't end as anything other than another great shinobi war. If this girl could get him information that could be used to stop it...

"This isn't a place for such a conversation," not to mention, he needed a rested mind for it.

"Agreed, the Shodaime's head at midnight?" she suggested, she too would rather have some privacy for it, and the place would help her frame the situation to her liking.

He nodded, and disappeared in a puff of smoke, heading home.

* * *

Nara Shikamaru was frustrated.

It wasn't because vacation was over and his mother had him wake up early, nor it was because he had to come to classes again, he had learned long ago that getting worked up by such things would only make them more troublesome.

It wasn't because the new girl in class was a walking puzzle: she was too confident and moved too precisely for someone their age, belying rigorous training, not even the troublesome Uchiha or the mousy non-troublesome Hyuuga were like that and their troublesome clans trained since they could walk, her slitted eyes would normally mean an Inuzuka in Konoha, but her face markings and last name were all wrong for that, and he knew he had heard the name Uzumaki before; such an unsolved puzzle irked him to no end but it wasn't the sole source of his frustration.

No, the main source of his frustration was that she was sitting in front of him during recess, a shogi board between the two; only a handful of his clan gave him a challenge anymore and only his father defeated him with regularity, yet this troublesome girl was beating him, her style of play being the most frustrating thing he had faced, unlike the elegant strategies of his family, her method was riddled with feints and false openings as traps, to the point he thought some of them she made for the hell of it, or likely just to annoy him, girls were troublesome that way.

He wracked his brain thinking his next move, constantly second-guessing himself and hoping that this time he wouldn't fall for yet another ruse, sadly it was not to be, and within a handful of moves he had his first loss against someone his age.

His eyebrow twitched, her grin widened, it was as if she took some perverse pleasure in irritating him (she did).

He didn't know it, but this game would be the start of a long and very troublesome friendship.

* * *

Naruclone-351-1 sneaked out of the bathroom stall, taking advantage of the empty corridors due to the students being on the yard and the teachers watching them, or resting in the staff room.

Her task was surprisingly simple, her creator had left her with a couple herbs it picked in class that could cause a mild case of food poisoning, all she needed to do was to break into an office, tamper with a certain lunch, and arrange the paperwork so that the right individual was picked as temporary substitute.

* * *

Uchiha Mikoto was waiting at the gates of the academy for her youngest son to leave from his first day of classes, when something red caught her sight, a girl with a very familiar shade of red hair, as it was the same color of her deceased best friend's, a glance at the whisker-like marks on the girl's face told her it was none other than Kushina's daughter.

A child she had been forced to ignore due to her status as a Jinchuuriki, in the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack there was a lot of suspicion thrown at her clan, it didn't help that she was one of the few in the know about the pregnancy, the due date and her friend's status as the Kyuubi's jailer, add the sharingan's rumored ability to control Bijuu and it was all rather damning, interaction with the girl would only make alarm bells sound on everyone's head.

She felt a pang of regret when she noticed the lack of any innocence in her eyes, she wished that she could have sheltered her, encourage her and her little Sasuke to be friends, but it was not to be, and with how things had been going within the clan, it was even less likely to happen.

A grim thought came to her, if Fugaku's plans succeeded she could do something about the girl, but if they failed, perhaps she should set up something so that her best friend's daughter didn't grow up without knowing anything about her mother.

As a former shinobi, it wasn't strange for her to think of the worst outcome, it was common for field chuunin to already have a written will in case they died on a mission even in peace times, and she had been a jonin before she had her eldest.

And perhaps she could task her with looking after her sons? if things don't work and yet either of them survive, well, Itachi was too kindhearted not to be affected terribly and her little Sasu-chan was too innocent, they would need somebody there for them, why not Naruko? after all, she had been there for Kushina when Uzushio fell, it would only be fair.

* * *

Naruko relaxed in the hot water, going to the hot springs with Anko and her friends was a luxury that she appreciated greatly, particularly after physical training, a sigh from Anko next to her told her she wasn't the only one who thought the same.

The snake mistress closed her eyes for a moment and focused, a twitch of her eyebrow was the only warning before she threw a kunai backwards at the wall dividing the male and female sides.

Right through a newly-made peeping hole, and nearly hitting the pervert on the other side, if the girly scream of surprise they heard was any indication.

The other three kunoichi were about to stand and pound said pervert when Anko raised a hand to signal them to stop, they looked at her in askance, when they heard a loud boom from the other side, and saw a white and red missile soaring into the distance. Anko smiled, "Explosive kunai, how do I love thee."

"So, Anko, why do you look like death warmed over?" asked Kurenai in concern, a look at the other two told her that they were also worried.

"Training, the gaki here figured out a way to improve the block on the bastard's seal, so now I can finally train properly," the amber-eyed chuunin said, lazily gesturing at the redhead next to her. There was no point in hiding she was proficient in fuinjutsu, and none of the other three knew much about seals, so they wouldn't get just how difficult such a task would be.

What surprised them was that Anko had told the girl about the seal, and even allowed her to tamper with it, the whole subject was very sensitive for the snake mistress after all.

"So, gaki, what did you do to your old teacher?" asked a smirking Anko to change the subject, they all knew about Naruko's dislike for her former homeroom teacher, and given Anko's praises of her skill, they were highly suspicious about her being held back a year, the girl's vicious revenge only cemented their belief.

"Whatever do you mean Anko-chan?" Naruko answered with fake innocence.

Right at that moment, a scream was heard all over Konoha, "AAAAAAAH! I'M COVERED IN BEEEES!"

A smirk slipped on Naruko's face, while the other four looked at her suspiciously. "I may have placed a few seals around his block that unseal a little swarm from stasis at certain times every day while he's asleep and place it on a genjutsu to direct it at him, the result is, well..."

"HEEEELP! I'M COVERED IN BEEES!"

Naruko's smirk grew, Hana asked nervously, "How long are you going to keep doing that to him? and aren't you afraid it'll be discovered?"

"We'll, he annoyed me for a year and then made me waste it, so I think the same length would only be fair, as for getting discovered, the seals will release all the bees inside and burn themselves if anybody gets close enough, If that happens I'll probably just make wild animals attack him for the rest of his punishment."

Anko beamed proudly at her, and the other kunoichi made a note not to get on the girl's bad side.

"PLEASE HEEEELP!"

"GET AWAY FROM ME! YOU'RE COVERED IN BEES!"

* * *

"So, did you finally found blades for you or are you still using bokken?" asked the purple-haired teenager, they had just left the hot springs, and were walking leisurely back to the village, Kurenai had dragged Anko away at some point, probably to drill her for pushing herself too hard.

While nearly all shinobi share a love for all things sharp and pointy, unlike Kiri and Kumo, only a handful in Konoha are interested in actual kenjutsu and proper swords, even most ANBU, who are given standard-issue ninjato know more than the basics, nor are their blades particularly good. So when she discovered that Naruko carried a pair of practice tanto she was set on turning the girl into a swordswoman; little did she knew that said academy student far surpassed her in skill with both her favored blades as well as several others, she was already a master before the disaster, and the 4 years of traveling with B only enhanced her ability. Still, the redhead enjoyed the company of the serious kunoichi, whom she had never gotten to know beyond mere acquaintance in the previous timeline.

Naruko rolled her eyes, "I already have the blades I want to use, but they're too long for me to use yet, maybe next year," she adopted a pensive look for a second, "I also have a katana, I could use it as a nodachi and there's even a few techniques of that blade length that I want to adapt for something else, but the sword doesn't like me at all."

"You do? can I see them? where did you get them?" asked Yugao excitedly with stars in her eyes.

"How can a lump of metal not like you?" asked Hana dubiously, she had never understood the sword obsession of both of her teammates, and pseudo-sentience was pushing it a little too far into samurai mysticism for her liking.

"Yes you can see them," she said, ignoring Hana's comment as she dug through her pack to conceal the fact that she was unsealing from within herself instead of from a scroll, she pulled the tanto she wielded before the jump and presented them to, dare she say it, her friend.

"The tanto are Uzumaki heirlooms," or would become heirlooms, given their quality, the sheathes were undecorated, made of a nearly black wood, that while lacquered it lacked the usual shine; they had no guards, and the hilts were wrapped in lilac silk, with both hilts and sheathes having dull metal caps engraved at the sides with the Uzumaki swirl. Unknown to her, Naruko had inscribed numerous seals on both of them, assisting her grip, enhancing chakra transfer, helping normalize the flow, allowing them to disrupt the chakra of many jutsu by cutting or stabbing them, and greatly strengthening them; even the sheathes weren't spared, they would stick to her even if the fastenings were cut, they were lightened, toughened to the point they could be used to break granite without a scratch, and the cap had a sealing array that could be used to fill or empty the sheathe of poison or blinding powder.

Given the unassuming mountings, the blades themselves were a surprise, at nearly 10 inches of length, they were slightly larger than Naruko's forearms as an adult, the quality surpassed even the katana Yugao had seen in the hands of the samurai in the service of the daimyo, and if her eyes didn't deceive her, the slight bluish tint meant they were made of chakra-conducting steel. Naruko had obtained them during the war in Tetsu no Kuni, made by one of their best smiths, it was only due to her importance to the alliance and that Mifune had taken a liking to her that she even got the opportunity.

"Damn Naru-chan, I've never seen blades this good, even Hayate's family blade looks bad in comparison, I wish I could get something like this here in Konoha," Yugao gushed next to a bored Hana, while the redhead took their distraction to pull the katana she had mentioned earlier.

"Well, if you want a blade so badly maybe you can see if this one likes you, it's not a piece for decoration, it's just too expensive for me to sell without getting arrested for possible robbery, and it has never felt right in my hands, so I can't use it either; I think it doesn't like that I got it through scavenging," while the others would assume she had gotten it from a chuunin hopeful corpse from forest of death given her association with Anko, she had actually gotten it when she was looting what remained intact of the last battlefield, it was the blade of Mifune, the general of Tetsu no Kuni himself; she had liked the old man ever since he made the five Kage look like unruly children, and while she had little use for honor herself, she respected him too much to let his blade rot in a wasteland. Sadly, the blade didn't seem to like neither B nor herself, much like nearly every Tetsu samurai blade they had come across.

"This is Kurosawa," she handed the blade to Yugao and took back her tanto, the chuunin completely entranced by the weapon in her hands. She slowly unsheathed it from it's purple saya, admiring the gleaming steel, the green and gold guard was rectangular, and the blade, while long and thin, held no sign of being fragile; she noticed that all three seemed to have been made by the same smith and from the same steels, but if Naruko's tanto were masterpieces beyond anything she had seen, then this blade matched them in craftsmanship and surpassed them in spirit.

"As far as I have gathered, it's an honest to kami Meito forged in Tetsu no Kuni, and its previous true wielder was rather fond of Iaido."

"And you're just giving it to me?" Yugao asked shakily.

"It's not like I can do anything with it, still, I ask you to only keep it if you can master it, and that's including mastering using chakra flow through it for techniques like the samurai in Tetsu can; a blade like that deserves to be wielded, not left to gather dust on a stand."

"I don't get it, a sword's a sword right? what's the big deal?" asked a confused Hana, the other two glared at her, after which Yugao simply walked to a nearby tree and effortlessly cut it. The chuunin stood there, stunned by the blade's sharpness, she had barely felt any resistance at all.

"Let's say blades are dogs, what you can get in Konoha are starved street pups, Kumo and Kiri nin get well-fed and trained hounds, while their elite and the daimyo's samurai get actual nin-dogs, that", Naruko gestured at the blade in the purple-haired kunoichi's hand, "would be the dog boss summon, there's only a handful of swords that would rate the same or higher."

Hana whistled at that, finally getting an idea of the quality of the katana.

* * *

Uchiha Itachi approached the top of the granite head of the first Hokage with sure steps, eyes darting around looking for the one he would meet with, or possible ambushes.

He was wearing his ANBU uniform, likely a spare, since it was clean, but he had foregone his mask as pointless for this meeting. Just as he reached his destination, his eyes darted to the side in surprise, and barely out of arm's reach a familiar red haired girl faded into view wearing a black hooded cloak over her usual outfit.

She smirked and lowered her hood, purple eyes alight with amusement at having caused a reaction on the stoic Uchiha.

_So last time wasn't just because I was tired, she is extremely skilled with that jutsu_.

He quickly recovered, and stood silently scrutinizing her. Naruko pouted, she had hoped to get more of a reaction; down to business it is then. She glanced at a spot in the treeline before looking back at Itachi, "If your friend is who I think it is, do warn him to be careful around Danzo, I would hate for the warmonger to have those eyes."

Itachi's face didn't even twitch, while it would normally be surprising that she could sense his friend and even pinpoint his location when he, an ANBU captain could barely detect him, with her earlier claims it only added credence to her sensory skills. What was worrying however was her insinuation, the fact that his friend had managed to evolve his eyes was a well-kept secret from those outside the clan.

"I like to keep track of the three elders and the Konoha council meetings, the greedy warmonger has been scheming more than usual, that much is certain," Naruko said, explaining her earlier statement. "As for your clan, with all that I've been feeling and how busy they've been at night, plans for an outright rebellion wouldn't be a surprise."

She chuckled bitterly, "all this unrest caused because a handful of people getting suspicious about an Uchiha being the culprit for the Kyuubi attack," she said with a slight smirk, which widened before she continued, "and they were right."

Itachi's gaze sharpened at that, that piece couldn't be attributed to some ability to sense emotions or her skill at stealth, furthermore, it didn't make sense. "There's no way the clan would be the cause, too many Uchiha died on the attack, there's no benefit whatsoever."

"Ah, but I didn't say the clan did it, did I?, I said an Uchiha did," she slowly made a half-seal, and in a puff of smoke, she was transformed into someone else.

It was a man about 5' 9" (175 cm), of pale skin and messy short black hair, wearing a hooded black cloak and a gray mask with orange flame pattern and only a single eyehole, which was on the right side. What made Itachi's eyes widen was the eye beneath, it wasn't a normal eye, nor a regular sharingan, but a red iris with a black pinwheel design similar to what his best friend possessed.

Magenkyo sharingan.

Naruko continued speaking, but now it was a male voice tinged with disdain and hate, a perfect rendition of the bastard's in her opinion, "Kyuubi showed me it's memory of the attack, the man before you ripped it out of my mother and used his eye to force it to attack, according to Kyuubi he wasn't Madara nor did he have his eye, the design on Madara's eyes was different and he was nowhere near his power; an apprentice or a heir, perhaps, but not Madara himself."

Naruko returned to her normal appearance after having said her piece, both of them were now silent, carefully observing each other for a full minute.

Any hope that this was just a ruse made by a talented child was dispelled by her earlier comments and shattered with that henge, barely anyone within the clan knew of the magenkyo sharingan, let alone what it looks like; he had no reason to doubt that Kyuubi was the source of the information, but what could the Bijuu possibly gain from revealing that information? was it truth or trickery? and why was this girl telling her all this?

His mind also noted the claim that Kushina was a Jinchuuriki, such thing wasn't public knowledge, and if it was true then his mother's friendship with Kushina could very well be the cause for the suspicion against the clan.

"Why are you telling me this, why not tell Hokage-sama?" he finally asked.

"If it comes down to civil war your clan might get the bright idea of trying to use me, or the victor might think Konoha is too weak and attempt to brainwash me into their blindly-loyal tool, I'm certain that the idea has already been proposed in the council," she snorted, "the fools know nothing of Jinchuuriki, such plan relies on breaking the mind and will before rebuilding it, No Bijuu would miss such an opportunity."

"I'm telling you because neither the Kyuubi nor I like the idea of being controlled against our will, be it by a village, a clan, or a mysterious madman."

"I'm not ready for the consequences of revealing my sensing skill to Hokage-sama, it would be different if they were discovered after having the chance to prove my worth in missions, but doing so as an academy student? too many on the council hate me, and both the elders and Danzo would not think twice at attempting to either kill me or forcefully recruit me into their little private army if they knew what I can do. You, however, have no ill will towards me, you have nothing to gain by ratting me out, and you would not allow civil war to break out if you can help it."

"The deal is this: in exchange for protecting my secrets, I will assist you in stopping your clan as long as it doesn't put me in direct risk," she finished with a piercing stare.

Her ability to sense emotions, her stealth, and combined with her mind, would be very useful in such an endeavor, if she could identify the main instigators then he could obtain proof of the conspiracy, and if worse came to worse he could then take down the real culprits.

"And after the rebellion is stopped?"

"Our mystery Uchiha is still at large, and will no doubt try again; he has also proven himself to be an enemy of Konoha. My skills in exchange for your secrecy, any knowledge you come across of him, and assistance in killing him and his allies."

So that was the main reason for helping, that man was a threat to her personally, and he didn't miss the emotion behind her words whenever she mentioned him, it was likely she had a grudge to settle, and he was happy that it was against a foreign threat than against Konoha.

And beyond keeping her abilities secret, her other demands wouldn't come into play unless neither she nor the Bijuu lied about the mysterious rogue Uchiha, in which case it was his duty to take him down both as an Uchiha and as a Konoha shinobi. On the other hand, he gained a very useful source of information within the village, information he could put into use to the benefit of the village so long as he kept his word.

"I accept your terms."

* * *

**Author Notes:**

**(1) Meisaigakure no Jutsu (chameleon Jutsu, lit: Hiding with Camouflage Technique): a ninjutsu that camouflages the user's scent, shadow and makes them transparent, to the point of complete invisibility if the user is skilled enough; the user can still be detected by a sensor or through chakra-seeing dojutsu unless he or she is also capable of completely hiding their chakra presence, such as the Niidaime Tsuchikage.**

**In Naruto, there seem to be a large quantity of weak shinobi amongst the chuunin and ANBU ranks, there's Mizuki and Iruka, there's the ever-present red shirts, er, I mean, ANBU ready to get beaten by the villain or villain henchmen of the moment, only for those to fall to the 'heroes', who during the first part of the series should be nothing more than wee little genin. If we equate rank with power, it doesn't make any sense, so I'm making two important distinctions:**

**There are 'field' shinobi, who advance through combat prowess, perhaps they got lucky in the chuunin exams, or perhaps they got promoted after a few years of service, some may reach a plateau in their skill at that point, or their strength lie on say, information gathering or tracking, while others would continue and advance to jonin. There are also shinobi that didn't have the heart or skill for field work and do administrative jobs, or teach, or work at the aviary or cryptanalysis or in the barrier teams or the hospital or whatnot, these may hold the rank chuunin or even special jonin, but most would easily loose to pre chuunin exams rookie 9.**

**The second distinction is in ANBU, there's simply too many red shirts amongst them to consider them combat elites, so in this fic, they aren't, ANBU get drilled in discipline, stealth, tracking and assassination, they are trained to fight the same and without flashy unique techniques so they aren't recognized, and their job is mostly assassinating civilians and leaving no trace while the regular Konoha forces serve as the friendly face that deals with, say, protection jobs of wealthy merchants; this separation is one of the reasons for Konoha's economic success. ANBU captains on the other hand ARE elite, comparable to any strong jonin; they are the ones that deal with the toughest missions that Konoha can't afford to get tracked back to the village.**

**As such, I will never talk about 'chuunin-level' or 'jonin-level' when speaking of strength, instead I will use letter ranking, from F (civilians), E (academy students to graduates, pre-shippuden Sakura), D (generic genin, Iruka, Mizuki, pre-exams Ino so long as she has a team to cover her jutsu's weakness), C (field chuunin, pre-exams rest of rookie 9), B (sound four, exams finals Sasuke, upper end of regular ANBU, weaker combat jonin), A (Sasuke retrieval arc Gaara is nearly S but not yet, pre-shippuden Kakashi and other rookie 9 sensei are varying levels of A, along with Zabuza), and finally, S, with the distance from A to S being rather huge, same with the difference between weak S rankers and even the middle tier ones. To ninja villages, S-rankers are the equivalent of weapons of mass destruction, which makes having a strong kage very, very important as a deterrent from direct assault, imagine what would have happened to Suna during the Deidara attack without Gaara to stop him, or the death toll somebody as comparatively weak as Sasori, a lower end S-rank, could cause in a direct attack without someone strong to stop him.**

**With this, Mizuki, for example, would be D, equal to, say, Iruka, but any of the non-fangirl rookie nine at that point of time would have been able to take him down; chuunin exams Sakura would be E, having never actually fought anything at that point. Chuunin exams finals Sasuke would actually be a solid B ranker, he has surprisingly large chakra reserves, stamina and speed, a varied jutsu repertorie of two elements, his lack of experience is offset by the predictive abilities of his sharingan, and his eyes also counter his lack of training in defense against genjutsu.**

**Regarding Mikoto, ever since it was revealed that she was best friends with Kushina I wondered why there never was any interaction with her and Naruto in the original work, this is my take. Similarly, I'll have a reason for the same thing for others such as Kakashi or Jiraiya.**

**There seem to be some confusion in why and how Naruko was held back a year, my excuse is that the teacher had it for her, said teacher was retiring from the ninja program, and the headmaster was in on it and covered things; while the teacher couldn't do it based on quantifiable skills, he could easily blame it on poor behavior in class or inability to work in a team or what have not.**

**My actual reason as a writer is that I wanted a chance to showcase one of her less admirable traits early (petty, whimsical and sometimes overly cruel vindictiveness); the actual fate of the teacher was delayed to here because I wanted some schadenfreude to balance this chapter.**

**Current ages and ranks:**

**Anko: 16 (c), Hana: 13 (c), Hayate: 15 (c), Itachi 13: (ANBU C), Kurenai: 23: (c), Naruko: 8, Rookie 9: 7, Team 9: 8, Yugao: 14 (c).**

**Killer B: 23 (j), Yugito: 21 (j).**

**Read and Review!, I'd love to hear your opinions on this work.**


	7. Ch 7: Lucky Seven

**Summary: Faced with a destroyed world, the last two Jinchuuriki travel back in time to prevent the world's destruction, this time they will be prepared. FemNaru, Timetravel, AU, Pairings Undecided.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

**AN: sorry for the delay, the Uchiha-related scenes really didn't want to write themselves, it wasn't until I re-read the previous chapter and altered the dialogues of the Itachi scenes a little so that I finally managed to get some progress done (nothing major, just some tweaking and re-wording so Naru didn't feel so OOC).**

**Yes, it is an interlude, I know it's kinda mean to give you this instead of plot after the delay, but I really wanted to introduce Fu in chapter 7 and putting that and the meat of the Uchiha plotline in the same chapter felt weird; anyways, CH 8 IS ALREADY WRITTEN, and it'll be out in a couple days.**

**I repeat, CH 8 IS ALREADY WRITTEN and will be out in a couple days.**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Lucky Seven (Interlude)**

Many miles from Konoha, deep in the forests of Taki no Kuni, and far away from any civilization, a young green-haired girl was heading home, walking on top of a rolling log as thick as she was tall; lumber for the next couple of weeks.

She was a skinny kid, tho not for a lack of eating, with copper-colored skin and short, spiky mint-green hair, wearing a loose sleeveless white T-shirt and tight bicycle shorts, a pair of large green-tinted goggles hanging from her neck, and no footwear whatsoever.

"**Morning Fu,"** a voice within her mind interrupted her balancing act, she stumbled, but deftly turned it into a handstand, perfectly keeping up with the log's rolling speed through her switch from bare feet to her hands, not even the huge grin on her face wavered.

"Hey, morning Chomei!"

* * *

Anko entered Naruko's room, said redhead was laying on her bed reading a thick book, or at least, what appeared to be the redhead.

"If you're looking for Naruko, she's out of the village right now, I'm only here so that Konoha's barrier doesn't detect her absence if anybody decides to check," answered Naruclone-1 without looking up from her book.

Anko pouted, she had wanted to get some training today in senjutsu, but she wasn't good enough yet to do it without supervision; sure, she could enter the state, but keeping it running and stable outside meditation was proving to be a problem; she plopped herself on a nearby chair, "so, what is she up to?"

"Selling some gems she brought back, setting up a couple minor plans she couldn't do within Konoha's walls, retrieving a little custom order, meeting with a couple Jinchuuriki..."

"Oh?" the last one caught the snake mistress' attention, she was unaware that any of the other Bijuu had accepted their containers yet.

"Nii Yugito is Nibi's, she's a Kumo jonin a couple years older than B, haven't talked to her all that much but he respects her skill which says a lot; the other one I'm meeting is Nanabi's, she's... a special case, she's a year younger than me and pretty much lives by herself in the forests, and the Taki shinobi are all too happy to ignore her; when the nine talked after the jump Chomei decided to step in and raise her, but it's not like Bijuu know anything about raising a kid or training a shinobi, so I'm helping," the clone grimaced at the last part.

Anko snickered at Naruko's face, still, there was something that was bugging her, "If you can already talk to them without anyone knowing, why risk meeting them in person?"

"I want to give a couple of things to Fu, the Nanabi's, and Yugito is going to deliver some stuff I brought back with me that belong to B that I don't want to risk sending through a courier; but it's also because of Fu's seal, if the design Chomei showed me is correct then that seal is a piece of crap, it'll crack and kill the kid before she reaches her twenties, out of the nine the only one worse is Gaara's, and I can't get to that one yet."

Anko whistled at that and both felt into silence, she had heard about Gaara's seal from the redhead, while sturdy and fully capable of handling full Bijuu transformation without damage, the seal kept Shukaku constantly awake and enraged, and had no filter whatsoever to prevent mental contamination; it was a testament to the future Kazekage's strength of will that he ended as a mostly sane person.

* * *

"Hungry, hungry, Fu is hungry, Fu just ate a bear earlier... wonder if there's a tiger nearby..."

Fu was walking on all fours, sniffing the ground for prey, she couldn't smell anything big or tasty enough nearby, but by the moisture scent she was close to a large lake, so she bounded to the cliff's edge and looked down at the body of water a few dozen feet below, where a couple of cow-sized shadows could be seen.

"Ok! Fish it is!"

And with that, she jumped off the edge, grabbing a tree branch on the way down to slow her fall and swinging herself into a flat rock jutting in the middle of the lake.

* * *

Nearby, a certain redhead was approaching the location of Nanabi's Jinchuuriki, once the Bijuu had agreed to give their wardens a chance, Chomei had taken a liking to the girl and started helping her, and recently it started using the connection between the nine to let her talk to the other hosts, or at least, the others that their beasts had deemed worthy as well.

It helped that she wasn't welcome in her home ninja village, and ever since the last leader of Takigakure died, nobody had bothered to even check on her; Chomei didn't have any trouble becoming a guiding figure in her life, and now it could easily rise her as it pleased. Naruko was just thankful that it wasn't the Ichibi that got that chance.

The girl was also the one with the most freedom, Iwa's were kept on watch as well as Suna's, one of Kiri's was a brainwashed Kage while the other was a wanted man, Kumo's had the advantage that A was in the know of the time travel, but they were known to the other villages just like herself, and while she could easily slip out, she couldn't allow herself to be discovered. Fu, on the other hand, was both unknown to the rest of the shinobi nations and nobody from her home kept tabs on her, and Naruko planned to use that advantage to the fullest once the girl was properly trained.

* * *

Inuzuka Tsume was in her office mentally cursing her position as clan head, her nin dog, Kuromaru, had abandoned her to the mountain of paperwork on her desk and was with the other dogs fooling around outside.

Deciding to take a well-deserved break for the sake of her sanity, she swiveled her chair and pressed her hand to the door of a cupboard and channeled chakra into it in a secret sequence only known to her, causing it to open and reveal the treasure inside: a large bottle of rice country sake, a rather expensive brand at that.

It was a hard task to hide good liquor in the house of the clan of bloodhounds, the fact that they were all family prevented blood seals from serving as a security measure, and with the clan's hearing there were many in it that were experts at cracking safes.

But just as her hand closed on the neck of the bottle, another clawed hand took hold of it as well, she turned her head to see her daughter was the culprit and growled threateningly at her, she was the Alpha of the pack and this was her bottle damn it!

Much to her surprise, Hana growled back just as fiercely.

They glared and growled at each other for a full minute with neither of them backing down, before deciding to share instead of risking breaking the precious bottle in a fight.

Ten minutes of silent drinking later, a much more relaxed Tsume decided to find out what had gotten her daughter so stressed, the last time she had seen her this bad was when her team had been forced to capture the Demon Cat five times in the same day.

"I got roped into working as a substitute teacher for the kunoichi classes in the academy", Hana growled remembering her day, "bunch of useless fangirls, and the previous teachers haven't taught them a thing."

Tsume rolled her eyes, "it can't be that bad."

Hana looked at her straight in the eyes and answered in a deadpan tone, "I just had the three older years today, there wasn't a single girl that wasn't a rabid fangirl, so far, the teacher has taught them how to paint their nails, cooking, cleaning, haircare, flower arrangement and dieting tips."

Both of them downed their cups in one go to wash out the disgust at that. Konoha's fangirl infestation was bad enough without them finding new ways to multiply.

"No wonder the graduation rate of kunoichi has dropped since you got out."

Hana nodded as she served herself another cup, "and the _shrieking_," she shuddered and downed her cup in one gulp. Tsume's mind quickly went to the Pink Banshee she had to tolerate during council meetings and imagined a room full of her clones, she shuddered and followed the lead of her daughter with her own cup, some mental images needed to be purged immediately and with extreme prejudice.

"What is that idiot Fujiwara thinking?"

Hana's face got a pensive look for a moment, "I bet so long as someone's teaching the class he's happy to ignore it, most men have no idea what those classes should have and will run for the hills the moment you mention menstruation," they both chuckled at that.

Tsume smirked, "Well, I'm not without influence, I bet I can get Yoshino and Mikoto to help without much effort and it's about time we got the old Konoha Kunoichi Association back on track."

The KKA had been spearheaded by Tsunade, mostly as a joke to counter her pervert of a teammate, but with time it grew on it's own, helping fight discrimination, pushing for the overhaul of the hospital, and offering support for kunoichi-turned-mothers amongst many other tasks, but after several of the core members died during the Kyuubi attack and with everyone busy in the aftermath, not to mention Tsunade leaving and Jiraiya rarely visiting to cause havoc, the group had fallen dormant on the political arena.

Not anymore.

* * *

"**Fu."**

"A big fish!, a big fish!" exclaimed said girl happily, dragging a fish several times her size without trouble, the wonders of muscle augmentation with chakra.

"**Fu,"** repeated the Bijuu, trying to gain the girl's attention.

However, the girl ignored it, and thus, bumped into something, nearly falling on her butt.

Said something looked at her with amusement, while such a hyper kid was exasperating, her patience had reached legendary heights after spending far too much time with B.

"Hey Fu."

"Aah! you shrunk!" the surprise was enough to do what bumping didn't, and the green-haired girl fell on her butt, a finger pointing at the redhead in front of her.

"I didn't shrink, I just look older when we talk through the Bijuu's connection, didn't I already tell you that?"

"Ah... Fu forgot," she stopped pointing and rolled backwards into a squat, tilting her head to the side in curiosity; she rolled forwards, falling in the same position just inches in front of Naruko and started sniffing her.

"Now, I brought a few things for you, remember when I taught you about storage scrolls?" the greenette paused her inspection and nodded, Naruko extended a hand to the side and a red backpack appeared, "the backpack is waterproof, and the back of it is rigid and lined with storage seals, I placed some stuff for you in them, but you can check that later," money, clothes, ninja tools, books, and a small collection of manga to entice her into reading and improve her skill at it, amongst other things.

Fu pounced on the backpack and began checking it, Naruko had made sure the material was nothing if not resistant, and it also had a hostler sewed in for her next gift; with a snap of her fingers a red cylinder about two foots long appeared in her hand, which she tossed to the girl, she was pleased that Fu, even distracted as she was, caught it without issues, "I made a bo staff for you, just channel some chakra into it and it'll grow, withdraw it to shrink it."

She observed with a smirk as the girl toyed with her new weapon with wide eyes and a bright grin, the staff had been a fun experiment in seals, trying, and succeeding, to reproduce the extending capabilities of the sword of Kusanagi, even if it wasn't as fast at it; of course, the weapon was reinforced to frankly ridiculous levels, it wouldn't stand to the aforementioned sword for long, but it would be able to tangle with any of the seven of Kiri without denting. It was as close to 'Tsunade-proof', or in this case, 'Jinchuuriki-proof', as a man-made weapon could get without resorting to overly exotic materials like mokuton-grown wood.

"What do you say we cook and eat that fish?" the seal could wait, after all, trying to keep a hungry Fu still long enough to modify it would be impossible.

* * *

Itachi and Shisui were leaning over a table, a stack of files were at one side, and a map was spread open covering most of the surface. Both files and map were provided by the resident demon container, filled with the information she had gathered on the current status of the Uchiha clan in the last couple weeks since their night meeting.

Overlaid over a simple map of the clan grounds was the information she had gathered from a safe distance over the course of her watch, divided in areas, each with a corresponding file registering the time and date of not only the negative emotions sensed, but also the locations and any large chakra usage.

Which meant they had a clear picture of the use of training grounds, any secret clan meetings or even meetings between those that were against the plan, and any storehouse being accessed at odd times. It also impressed upon them her range, with her abilities she could track many individuals at the same time without their knowledge anywhere within the village, increasing her usefulness in their eyes.

And all that without involving anyone from the ninja forces, so there was no risk of being discovered by the spies they were sure the clan had; A far cry better than what they could get alone, even if their jobs didn't consume most of their time.

Shisui was the first to look up from his inspection, "so... we're honoring the deal with the brat?"

"You don't like it?"

"If she could get this much with just a two weeks of surveillance, she could be very useful, but I'm worried about her loyalty," Shisui said seriously.

"Hn."

"Don't give me that! what if she isn't loyal to the village? so far she has shown skill at stealth and sensing far beyond what she should have at that age, what if she uses that to run away!?"

Itachi sighed and proceeded to calm down his friend, "If she wanted to run away she would have done so already, if she wanted to buy time she wouldn't have said anything about the supposed Uchiha causing the Kyuubi attack. Everything points to that she believes that to be true."

"That doesn't mean she won't run off an is helping us to stop the coup to buy time," Shisui continued exasperated, but any further complain was cut off by his friend.

"It means that she'll either want Konoha as a shield or the resources she could have as a shinobi of the village in order to hunt down the traitor, with any other village she has no guarantee that they won't ally themselves with the masked man. She'll be loyal to the village because she doesn't have any other option."

* * *

Naruko was kneeling next to a sleeping Fu, her nimble fingers carefully tracing the design on the base of the girl's spine; she was rather disturbed by the girl's appetite, idly wondering not for the first time that day if she had a gateway to another dimension for a stomach.

After all, she had just seen her devour what must have been at least twice her body weight in fish.

Still, she had work to do before her fellow Jinchuuriki awoke from her nap, or her food-induced coma, whatever that was; nevertheless, Naruko added a simple sleeping genjutsu to ensure Fu wouldn't wake until she was done.

The design Chomei had shown her was correct, Fu's seal was flawed, the strain of holding the third strongest Bijuu was slowly weakening the seal, and eventually it would shatter and kill the greenette in a rather violent fashion. Luckily, Naruko was a sealmaster far beyond the skill of the (in her mind) incompetent fraud who made the original seal.

She silently unsealed her brush from within herself, alongside a bottle of special ink and a porcelain bowl, she poured ink until it filled a third of the bowl, and cutting to her right palm with a chakra-sharpened fingernail allowed her to fill the rest with her blood.

She carefully mixed the two liquids while her mind designed what to do, reinforcing the current seal was out of the question, it was bad enough that such blemish existed in the first place, she was not about to patch it; on the other hand she couldn't just destroy the seal and then replace it with a new one, not without killing Fu in the process; no, the solution she had in mind was considerably trickier, her seal would have to do both task simultaneously for it to work, it made her giddy with anticipation.

With swift brush strokes she painted the first part of her new creation, a string of symbols that created a spiral surrounding the original seal three times, this seal would, when activated, slowly constrict around the old work, eating it while simultaneously replacing it to become the Bijuu's new home. That part done, she swiftly followed with the next, which would act as the channels and controls for the chakra flow between human and tailed beast.

Gently placing her fingers around the new seal and careful not to smear anything and ruin her work, the youngest Uzumaki poured her chakra and activated her newest seal.

"Hasu Fuin!"

Before her eyes, the blood and ink mix glowed blue and came alive, the center spiral constricting into a circle, where the old seal shrunk and morphed into the kanji for 'lotus', while the control seals, once forming a simple circle, bloomed into seven petals. Fu grimaced in pain, but the genjutsu held and her sleep was unbroken.

Naruko stood and stretched, it was a good time as any to set up the area with some seal-based security, it wouldn't do for her training in the use of Bijuu chakra to be easily discovered.

* * *

After a couple minutes of silent contemplation, the snake mistress finally asked, "so, what are you reading? that doesn't look like one of the academy books."

It was far thicker than any of the academy books for one, and the pages were glossy and expensive-looking, "It isn't, I took it from the medical section of the library."

"I thought you couldn't do med-nin techniques, why the sudden interest?"

Naruko shook her head, "I can do some through fuinjutsu, but that's not why I'm reading this, there's a little technique that I'm trying to complete, as it is it puts too much strain on the user for prolonged use and I'd like to reduce the chakra cost."

Strain? now that got Anko's attention, there were very few jutsu that put a strain on the user beyond chakra usage, and most of them were either some form of self-enhancement or transformation, the med-nin book on the girl's hands made it all the more likely that it was of one of those two types; she raised an eyebrow and leaned forwards in interest.

"I got inspired after watching the current Raikage fight," the redhead continued talking, content in drawing out her explanation, "he has a technique called Raiton no Yoroi, where he uses lightning chakra to protect himself, increase his damage and greatly increase his speed and reflexes."

The snake mistress' eyes widened at that, it was damn impressive in Anko's opinion, it was stuff like that that put the Kages and other S-rank shinobi so far above the rest that it wasn't funny. Wait, did that mean that Naruko was trying to replicate it?

"I don't have the right affinity to do such a thing, but I am a seal master," the girl smirked proudly as she continued, "why resort to lightning to speed up my body, when I could bend time and do the same?" her smirk widened at Anko's astonished look, "now now, did you really thought that my little hop in time was the first time-space jutsu I created? I've been using and creating such things since I was 16."

* * *

**Author Notes:**

**So we get introduced to Fu, the academy kunoichi classes sideplot advances, and we get to know a little more about our heroine: she haves a soft spot for her new 'pupil' tho she'll adamantly deny it, and when it comes to sealwork, she's an elitist snob.**

**Regarding the other countries knowing about Naruko's status as a Jinchuuriki, I am of the opinion that if there is anything that is common knowledge to the civilian population of a major ninja village, then the other nations know it too through the merchants and clients that constantly visit, particularly if it's high profile information (Jinchuuriki status, Hatake Sakumo's suicide and similar happenings); it's different in the case of a minor village where they can have the luxury of a tighter security, take Taki for example: you need to go through underground water tunnels and then a cave maze to even get to it, I really doubt there's any civilian traffic at all, so supplies and contracts have to be brought through other means, like, say, by the village's shinobi in scrolls from outposts in nearby towns and the local daimyo's court.**

**Speaking of Taki, we know next to nothing about the country itself, so I'm free to toy with the area as much as I please: geographically, there's a lot of forests and, of course, waterfalls, so think a mountainous area like Huangshan in China; I'm also adding overly large animals, not too much of a stretch, given that there is a boneyard of giant animals in a neighboring country. Similarly, we know next to nothing of Fu, other than having a happy-go-lucky attitude and being treated poorly by her countrymen, so I'm basing her personality on two rather distinct characters, anyone up to guessing who? :3**

**Current ages and ranks:**

**Anko: 16 (c), Hana: 13 (c), Hayate: 15 (c), Itachi 13: (ANBU C), Kurenai: 23: (c), Naruko: 8, Rookie 9: 7, Team 9: 8, Yugao: 14 (c).**

**Killer B: 23 (j), Yugito: 21 (j).**

**Read and Review!, I'd love to hear your opinions on this work.**


End file.
